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At a recent Open tournament, the following board was played 8 times in a heart contract, sometimes in part-score, sometimes in game. Not once did the defence take more than three tricks. Can you do better?

 

3 was a Weak Jump and you raised one level before North tried for game. With plenty of defensive cards, you passed this out and led J.

Your partner won the first trick with A and switched to a trump. Declarer won their A and played 8. Plan your defence.

The instinctive action from a West player is to win A because South must have a singleton club. Your instinct may be correct. If it was, did you find the only chance of then defeating the contract? That would be by playing a second round of diamonds and hoping South still had one. Your aim would be to cut declarer off from the club suit because they had to draw trumps and finish in dummy…and since you, West, had 3 hearts, the third round of trumps would be played from the South hand.

Yet, had you won A at trick 3, South would very quickly wrap up 11 tricks because this was the full lay-out.

 

After you play a second round of diamonds, declarer ruffs, draws trumps and enjoys multiple rounds of clubs.

The theory of reducing dummy’s trumps was right but declarer did not have a singleton club. South could not initially draw trumps and then play clubs because the defence could take at least 2 spades, A and A. A better switch at trick 2 from East would be 5. Imagine you held AQ and 4 tricks would then be assured. With the trump play at trick 2, you West would have to play a second round of diamonds when you took the A whereas after the spade switch, you could now play K and then 8 (East’s spade play seemed to indicate a 3-card suit, hopefully headed by J).

Yet, you had to duck that first round of clubs. What then could South do? They did not have non-trump entries to their hand to ruff spades. They had to play a second round of clubs. So, as long as you ducked the first round of clubs and then played a spade or a diamond to force one ruff in dummy, there would be four tricks for the defence.

Could West anticipate a doubleton club in the South hand? South could easily have one more heart and one less club. In that case, one spade could be discarded on the second round of clubs and the chance of defeating the contract reduced. It would seem that ducking the 8 might just be the only way of defeating the contract.

Richard Solomon

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