All News

 

Five before Nine.

Today’s battle is a familiar one with declarer looking for an extra trick in their 3NT contract while yours is to find five for the defence before they do so.

Let’s start at trick 1:

 

That’s no great 3 bid from North. We know North’s long suit may not be running, depending on how many clubs South has. West leads 4, 4^th highest leads. Which card do you as East play to trick 1 and why?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question (though perhaps one answer you may choose is less right than others). It depends on agreements and people’s agreements may differ.

What happened at the table, though, was not right. Playing “low encourage”, East played 2, which seemed rather encouraging to West. Declarer called for 10 from dummy and East played low with West taking the trick with K. Buoyed on by 2, West continued with a second low spade…and only the declarer enjoyed the outcome:

 

J won trick 3 giving South their opportunity to take 9 tricks…as they did. They cashed K and then played 2 to the ace. Next came K and with the fall of Q, declarer jettisoned J and took 6 club and 3 spade tricks…contract making.

If West had started with QJ and say 2 or 3 others, they would need little encouragement to continue with a second spade. No other suit looked like producing enough tricks and even though South had initially ignored dummy’s long suit, they would surely be looking to the club suit for some tricks.

The problem occurred when East encouraged in a situation when they really needed to discourage. The spade continuation was fatal for the defence as East feared it might. So, East needed to discourage the spade continuation at trick 1, the card played depending on whether one gives reverse or natural signals. Note that giving count in such a situation just does not help. West will know their partner has at least 4 spades by virtue of South bidding 3NT (otherwise South has 5 spades and 6 hearts…an impossibility on the above auction).

East had another tricky decision at trick 2. Had South held K, then it was probably correct to duck J hoping West held Q and declarer played low. On the actual lay-out, ducking made the defence harder even if East had discouraged spades.

When West won the K, the only successful defence is a low diamond away from the ace to East’s K. Then, East can play 10 taken by South’s K. Still needing a 9^th trick, South might try either red suit. If a second diamond, West must rise with A to play a heart to East’s ace for a 3^rd round of spades. The defence can then take 2 spade tricks along with 2 tricks in each red suit to beat this ambitious contract.

Had East taken A at trick 2 and played a spade, again South takes K and can try a second heart. West must then win to find a diamond switch to their partner’s K (though they can cash A first to make it easier for East) to beat the contract.

While declarer might have tried running 6 club tricks first, the defence should always prevail with East having two certain entries to play spades. Perhaps, though, the crucial card was that played by you, East, at trick 1.

Richard Solomon

 

Go Back View All News Items