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Listen to your Heart.

I rather wish I had done. I think our score would have been 4% better off had I done so. Yet, it was a strange unusual thing to do, to find that lead against a slam. It need not have been successful either but in reality, it just might. Welcome to a most unusual interesting slam hand.

 

The bidding was straightforward and slightly tentative in that all four North-South bids were the opposite of deliberate. The absence of any spade support from my partner led me to believe that a normal high spade lead might be interesting. It was, and initially rather rewarding, too.

 

Unfortunately, it destroyed the defence’s main weapon, East’s 3 card diamond suit, at trick 1. Had dummy even had one heart, we would have been recording +100 by trick 2..but no.

East ruffed (it really seemed the obvious thing to do), and exited with a trump. 8 won in hand. Next came three rounds of clubs (no finesse), the third round being won by the A in the South hand. Now a low diamond to dummy collected our remaining two small trumps and declarer was to enjoy discarding three hearts on established clubs, return to hand with A and ruff the remaining heart loser with dummy’s last trump leaving declarer with two small trumps at tricks 12 and 13. Slam made. It would have made no difference had East exited with a low heart at trick 2 (potentially better than A). The ruff is taken then rather at trick 11.

After the spade lead, if East does not ruff, then declarer wins, plays three rounds of clubs, ruffing high and then three rounds of trumps finishing in dummy. Now three hearts are discarded on three more clubs with the only loser being declarer’s 4^th heart.

Listen to your heart…

What was my heart saying? It was saying that I should start off with that K. Would you? I just wondered if we could set up a heart trick, maybe even take the first 2 tricks. Neither was right but it just might have been a little more interesting and more rewarding. Watch.

Declarer has to ruff at trick 1 (or else can be beaten by a spade ruff) and therefore can no longer set up the clubs for discards because of East’s three trumps (as long as East keeps three trumps). At trick 2, declarer plays a spade to his hand. If East ruffs, it is all over even if East plays A. Declarer ruffs and plays dummy’s last trump overtaking and now plays 4 more rounds of trumps and A. East has a problem on the last trump at trick 9 holding J7 and Q32. Take a look.

 

Declarer has the high Q and a heart loser and thus East has to throw a club. Note also that South knows West’s shape as 7 spades, at least 2 hearts and 2 diamonds..and so West cannot have more than two clubs: no club finesse!  

Say East does not ruff the spade at trick 2 but discards a heart. Declarer wins and plays their other high spade which again East declines to ruff. (If you can do this once, you can do so once again!) Now ruff a second heart in dummy and cash dummy's remaining trump. This is the lay-out with declarer in dummy:

 

East has to discard a heart as declarer ruffs a spade back to hand. Now comes three more rounds of trumps. What does poor East discard on the last two trumps?J and then? It has to be a club. South is a’ counting! The only heart left is the A. Declarer knows West's shape is 7222 and saw the club discard from East. Easy game or should we say easy slam made..or not!

Of course, declarer may have pinned all hope on the club finesse and that would have failed. That would have been the defence’s wish. While East has three trumps in their hand, the more normal method of setting up clubs and drawing trumps in three rounds does not work after an initial heart lead.

Certainly, the slam can be made after the K lead even if East resists ruffing twice. Yet, it is a whole lot harder after that K lead than after a spade lead, whether East ruffs or not.

Listen to your heart….lead one!

 

Are you defending or being dummy on Jan’s Day?

 

1 is 4+ spades. You bid 3 pre-emptively to shut the opponents up…but that did not work! What now?

Richard Solomon

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