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For Junior and Intermediate players….and others. It’s Fri   day.

No guess needed.

This real deal occurred in a recent tournament. It demonstrates quite simply an approach which takes away the guess of where key missing honours might be. Yet, not all declarers took advantage of the situation and some made less tricks than they should. As it was a Pairs event, making as many tricks as one can, including overtricks, is very important.

 

North-South were playing a 15-17 1NT opening, hence North’s 1 start. The heart fit was soon found and with South also having 14 hcp, the heart game was soon reached.

West led Q. What is your plan to make both your contract (always a great idea!) and as many tricks as you can?

Winning trick one with K in the South hand, it seems a good idea to draw trumps. Although on a really bad day when East has the singleton K, you would lose 2 trump tricks, playing low to Q seems the best way to start, losing no heart tricks if West started with K and one other or maybe where East held singleton J or 10.

On this day, Q lost to K in the East hand. East returned 7. You draw the remaining 2 trumps in one round (a 2-2 break) with your only problem now being in clubs.

At least one declarer played low to 8 in dummy and lost to J in the East hand. East exited a second diamond and declarer played Q, again finessing, a 75% chance that one of the finesses would work. Yet, this was the lay-out:

 

 

South made their contract but got a very poor score for making just 10 tricks. Other declarers got luckier when after drawing trumps,  they cashed A and played a club towards the Q, making 11 tricks. They got luckier but did not play the contract any better than our first declarers.

Some declarers took the far better line which guaranteed they would make 11 tricks, not 75% but 100%, much better odds!

After drawing trumps, they played a spade to dummy’s ace and then two more rounds of diamonds. Only then did they play Q. If West held K, declarer would be guaranteed only one club loser. When East took K, they had a choice of losing options, either giving declarer a ruff and discard by playing a spade or a diamond, or a guaranteed second club trick for declarer by returning a club.

Such a technique is called an "elimination play”, taking away safe side-suit entries before you lose one trick, which you almost certainly have to with this club suit. These South players did not have to make any guesses on who held the missing club honours. No guess making 11 tricks is a much better option than guessing and making 10 or 11. Next week, we may need to use the same technique to guarantee making our contract. “Eliminate” your cards in the side-suits and eliminate the guess.

Richard Solomon

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