All News

Take advantage!

No Wasted Opportunity.

It looked to the declarer of today’s deal that an opportunity to defeat the contract had been missed by the defence. It is thus a good time to avoid any slip-up in the play.

 

 

A little piece of over-bidding landed South in the spade game. North rather liked their hand after the spade fit was found and stretched to game. As it happened, South (with a 12-14 1NT opener) would have accepted a 3 invitation.

West led a trump to East’s A. East returned 3. What can you deduce from the play so far? What is your best line to come to 10 tricks?

While it is not guaranteed, it looks like East would have continued spades if they could. Declarer might well want to ruff diamonds in the North hand. 4 is at this point easy to make if the trumps break evenly with a club disappearing on the third round of hearts and 2 diamonds ruffed in dummy. So, it seems reasonable to play a second trump on which East discarded 7 (low like). Even if you could still ruff two diamonds in dummy, which would be hard without touching clubs, there would be the problem of returning to the South hand to draw West’s last trump.

So, with that line not very attractive, what alternative was there..or in other words, which card should be discarded on the third round of hearts?

The solution was rather strange in view of the club position. It looks like declarer might discard a club to avoid three losers in that suit but if trumps are drawn, there would only be one trump in dummy to take care of South’s two losing diamonds (assuming K did not fall in two rounds).

So, declarer drew West’s last spade with dummy’s J, played a heart to K and then a diamond to the ace in dummy. A diamond was discarded on the Q and then 10 played. East played a low club and declarer held their breath as they played low as well.

 

When A won the trick, South could ruff the diamond return in dummy and play a second club, restricting club losers to two…and contract made.

That an initial A lead or even a low club switch when East won their A would have defeated the contract (both with a club ruff) is not the point. South had to ensure that it was a diamond and not a club that was discarded on Q or else the contract would fail, despite the favourably placed J.

After the heart return at trick 2, the contract had a 50% chance of success when the 3-1 spade break was revealed. It would have been a pity to fail when the key J was favourably placed.

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items