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The Last Resort.

If you can entice the opposition to open up a suit to your advantage, then it can be better than playing the suit yourself. Perhaps you can force them to play that suit for you. Even better. If all else fails, you will just have to play that suit yourself, as a “last resort” not as your number 1 plan for making your contract.

With that in mind, take a look at this:

 

 

A nice easy auction to 4. West leads A on which East plays 3 (low encouraging). West continues with 8. If you win in dummy, East plays 5. Plan the play. Hearts break 2-1.

It would seem to be unwise to play West for the Q. It is not common to lead from AQxx against a suit contract. We also know that East encouraged a diamond continuation. There may be times not to trust the opponents but this is not one of them. Pay out to the odd occasion when West did hold Q.

So, taking the K in dummy creates two diamond losers and one in clubs, for certain, two if West held A. So, some Souths took their K, drew trumps in two rounds and played a club towards the king. No joy as the defence quickly took one more trick in each minor suit to defeat the contract.

 

 (hand rotated from actual event)

Could South have done better? That club play should be the “last resort”. One declarer made their contract by running 6 rounds of hearts with West’s last 5 cards being QT7 and AJ. South played 3 rounds of spades, West winning their queen, and the declarer made their K at trick 13. Not bad but West could have countered this by throwing Q on the first or second rounds of the suit. East now wins J and the defence will take 2 further tricks to defeat the contract.

This board came from last weekend’s Kelly Peirse Open Teams. Three declarers, Colin Carryer (helping his team to top place), Faisal Alam and Anthony Ker gave their opponents no chance of getting four tricks. They all received the lead of A and a second diamond, taking the king in the North hand.

They played a heart to the king and a low heart to the ace to be followed by a spade to the king, a second spade to the ace and a spade ruffed high in hand. 4 went to the 5 in dummy (keep an eye on your entries when you are taking such a line) and a fourth round of spades was played.

East discarded and so did South, that losing diamond. West won their Q and was left with having to play A and a club to South’s king: contract made.

Note that the A was still in the North hand. Had East held the Q, the declarers would have had to ruff and play a trump to dummy and play a club towards the king, “the last resort”. That proved unnecessary and their play gained all three declarers a well- deserved game swing.

     
Colin Carryer                      Anthony Ker  
who along with Faisal Alam gave their defenders no chance. 

It was important for these declarers to realise that the opening lead was from, or very likely from, A doubleton or that that was the likely holding had East initially led a low diamond to West’s ace, with West returning the suit.

Naturally, the contract can always be beaten if played by North and East leads a club. 3NT can also be made by South with declarer leading a diamond towards the king for their 9^th trick if they are not given it in clubs. More realistically, save that club towards the king as "the last resort" rather than your main line of play. 

  Where to next?

 

To some

To some degree, this question depends on your system agreements. Let us say 2 is natural, 10+hcp. 2H is 4^th suit forcing but it is up to you as to whether it is 1-round or game- forcing.

 

Richard Solomon

 

 

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