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Missed Opportunity.

Some contracts are just unmakeable as long as the defence is accurate. That would apply to today’s deal though when declarer gets a favourable lead, they should be careful to take full advantage.

 

1NT showed 15-17 with 2 being Checkback for the majors. After West showed 3 spades, East jumped to game.

South led the 3 and East played low from dummy, being relieved to see that North played J to East’s Q. Our declarer drew trumps in 3 rounds, with South who only had two trumps discarding a low heart. Then came a low club from the East hand towards dummy with K scoring.

Declarer then tried a low diamond to the Q and South’s A. South exited with a low heart with North following suit.

What now? These cards remained.

East had taken 6 tricks and the defence 1 with declarer having 3 certain tricks in spades and diamonds. It looked pretty promising that declarer could score at least one more club trick, maybe even two if as seemed likely that South held the A. So, declarer played K and ruffed a diamond before playing a club towards dummy….and the roof fell in!

 

A took the next trick when declarer played Q…and North played a third round of hearts. East used their last trump to win the trick and played a third round of clubs to North’s ace. Rather annoyingly, North still held a heart which was the fourth trick for the defence.

South made an unfortunate lead for the defence (we all do at times) but North knew how to defend, doing very well to duck the first round of clubs smoothly. Had they won the A on the first round, East could play Q and another club to make their contract in comfort.

However, despite the good defence, East should have prevailed. Unless North held AJTx, the contract was cold in the 6-card diagram position above. All East had to do was to play a low club (best if South held that AJTx) away from the table. Ruffing the diamond spelt disaster as we saw. Certainly, playing the low club gave up any chance of making an overtrick, but it ensured the contract’s success whenever clubs broke 3-2 or when South had 4 clubs.

The game was Teams but even in Pairs, ensuring your contract is usually correct giving up on the overtrick.

When East exited with the low club, they could ruff the heart return and when they lost the next club, they still had a trump left to win and play the 4^th round of clubs, the 10^th trick for East (5 spades, 2 hearts, 1 diamond and 2 clubs). At the point of the 6-card ending, East was guilty of not counting their tricks.

This was a pity as many who opened a 15-17 no trump as West got to be declarer and received a low heart lead after which there were only 9 tricks. Indeed, the contract could not be made unless South led a heart, as the first time the suit is played.

So, when the opening lead favours you, be careful to taker full advantage of your good fortune.

Richard Solomon

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