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Good timing, great result!

So, you are doubled in your pre-empt. How you wished you had a 7^th trump! Never mind, dummy looks half decent and this will be no blood-bath. Even better if you could make your contract. Can you?

 

West leads K. A couple of clues. East holds A while when a first round of trumps is played, you insert the 9 and that draws the ace. Well?

The first thing to realise is that West’s double was for take-out and that it was East who converted it to a penalty double. You would be in a much worse position if West held long clubs.

Barring a miracle Kx in the West hand, or misdefence, you will have a spade to lose, A and AK. In order to make your contract, you must not lose a trick to the J. That’s key to your line of play.

So, win the A and discard a diamond as you do not want to have to ruff a diamond in dummy. Those little trumps there are needed to play trumps.

Then lead 3 from dummy. These are the four hands:

 

East took their ace (take it or lose it as two diamonds could then be ruffed) and returned their lowest trump. South inserted 9 losing to the A.

East exited a diamond to declarer’s K. Then came a spade to the Q and an extremely important play, a heart ruffed in hand. South did not want too many trumps left in their hand towards the end of the play.

South cashed their other diamond winner and played a spade to the ace and then called for dummy’s remaining club. At that point these cards remained:  

 

Declarer played dummy’s trump and East made the mistake of taking K. They had to play a red card enabling South to ruff and exit the spade and declarer now took the last two tricks with QT, contract making. Had East played low, South would soon be leading away from QT giving both tricks to the defence.

The key to such a deal is for South to reduce their trump holding by ruffing hearts from dummy, rather than playing dummy’s diamond.

A discarding a diamond and ruff a heart and a spade to the queen and ruff a heart. Now K won by the ace with East returning a trump to West’s ace. West is best to exit a diamond and then these cards remain with declarer having taken A, 2 heart ruffs, Q and Q.

 

Now ruff the diamond in dummy, cash A and a third heart ruff and declarer can exit a spade. They must win one more trick with QT doubleton left.

It can be unnerving ruffing in this way but where a defender has a strong trump holding: this is what you must do to come to 9 tricks.

 

Not easy and our declarer was on the right track but needed a little help from East.

 

 

What is your choice? 2 is a normal artificial game force. You reminded partner what to lead as it looked like North would be declarer… but no, South has ended up in the driving seat. (2 was just a negative). So?

Richard Solomon

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