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Safety First.

The scoresheet looked very consistent on today’s board. It was not one that the declarers would have wanted. Yet, the play of the hand started so well for most of them.

 

In our auction, South showed a maximum weak no-trump hand with 4-card trump support. However, North was always going to game and at all bar 2 tables, 4 was the final contract, sometimes by North, sometimes by South. Almost all declarers received a heart lead, 10 from East or 4 from West.

4 ran round to J in the South hand as East played 9. 10 lead was covered by Q West’s K and was won by A. How would you proceed from there?

Perhaps because they were playing Pairs or perhaps because they were playing too casually, most declarers seemed to either lay down A or else play 6 to A at trick 2….and they were in for a nasty surprise!

With the A a certain loser, the declarer could afford a maximum of 2 spade losers, assuming they could dispose of their deep heart loser…but they could not afford 3 trump losers. On good days, the trump break will be 2-2 and there will only be 1 trump loser. If East held the singleton K, trumps could be drawn without loss. As you may guess, this was not one of those days.

 

Playing a low trump from either hand and covering the trump the next defender played just might be a good way to start. A declarer could win back the lead and then decide how to play trumps, except on this day, with West discarding, the declarer will know. Indeed, had the 6 won the first round, the declarer could play a second spade and reduce their trump losers immediately to 2.

Where 2 was led to 6 and East’s 9, the South players still had work to do. East would return a second round of hearts to the ace in the North hand.

Declarer had both to play a high trump from dummy and also dispose of the heart loser. So, Q which East has to cover and taken by A to be followed by a club to the ace and a second club to J (no luxury of playing K hoping Q falls in 3 rounds).

K takes care of the heart loser as these cards remain:

Q is played which West may as well win to play T. 7 is overruffed by J as East exits a diamond allowing declarer to draw East’s 5 and make the remaining tricks, 10 in all. That’s rather more complex than had trumps broken 2-2 but shows what can be achieved even with a bad trump break.

So, does it seem rather strange to start off with a low trump away from A in the closed hand? Say spades were 2-2 with West holding K? What is West to think? They may not rise with K, at least not quickly, as many players these days open 1NT with a 5 card major and a balanced hand. Has South 5 spades headed by J? On this day, taking K would solve declarer’s trump problem but they may choose to duck…and South is allowed to change their mind about which spade to play from the North hand. Declarer can still guess which defender may hold initially SKJx. 

Such practical considerations make the trump play above more appealing than just in case either defender holds 4 trumps.

Only three declarers made 4 (2 after a heart lead) while there were over 20 casualties. 

Richard Solomon

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