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“Make it” easy if you can.

You do well to reach a relatively low-point count slam. So, it goes without saying that you want to make it. The trump ace is missing. So, there is no worry about scoring an overtrick, even though Pairs is the game. 12 tricks are just fine. Over to you. There has been no opposition bidding.

 

West leads J with East following with 3, reverse count.

 

2NT was Jacoby, game-forcing with 4+ hearts. 3 showed the club shortage with the next 4 bids showing first or second-round control in the suits bid. 5 showed 1 or 4 key cards with 5 asking about the Q. South held that card but had no other kings not previously shown and so jumped to 6.

There are varying ways one could be defeated. It would be very unfortunate if the partner of the defender who held the A had only one diamond. However, our main concern must be in avoiding a spade loser. We could finesse for the king through either defender though maybe we can delay finessing for a while.

At least one South did not follow the advice given above in the title. They decided to draw trumps which took three rounds (no singleton diamond!) and then decided to put their money on the ruffing spade finesse. (A then Q.) They were not to be happy with the result:

 

Declarer could try a round of trumps without touching clubs but a trump return from East might prove awkward if clubs misbehaved along with a 3-1 trump break.

That line had a pure 50% chance of success, though greater because the slam was lay-down had trumps broken 2-2. South has 3 spade losers to dispose of and barring a really freak break in the club suit, one can be discarded safely on the second round of clubs (K). Why not try that first? As you will see, the J falls (East should try to put declarer off the easy path by playing Q under the king or even on the first round of the suit.)

South may as well try a club ruff at this point and the news would be very good. Had the news been bad (i.e., West had 5 clubs to an honour), then declarer would have either to ruff two spades in dummy or only then consider the finesse possibilities.

well, not much!

It would seem many of our contracts are quite hard to make but when the cards lie favourably, we really should take advantage if we can…and delay 50-50 finesses for as long as we can.

New Zealand in action

Yes, today, Thursday, our Men’s team starts playing in the Asia Cup competition in Jakarta. It is a fascinating team with a blend of great experience in terms of Michael Ware, Malcolm Mayer and Ashley Bach playing with our future in terms of Leon Meier, Jack James and Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin.

Follow their progress here starting Friday.

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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