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                                                            but for which side?

A Deal for both sides.

The deal today was one of the most interesting of the week at the Gold Coast and came from the latter stages of the Ivy Dahler Swiss Pairs. It features both problems for the declarer and the defence. We will look initially from the declarer’s point of view.

 

In the above sequence, East’s 2 showed both majors and less than an opening hand. 2NT enquired more and 3 showed a maximum hand with longer spades. The Blackwood response showed the missing ace and West settled for 6NT.

North led 10 and this was covered by Q in dummy, K by South and won by declarer’s A. Plan the play.

While the 4-card heart suit might put some off from opening a standard Weak 2 on the East cards, a 1 opening would certainly propel the partnership to slam and East may well drive the partnership there if they passed initially and heard their partner open a game-force 2. With holds everywhere but no fit, 6NT seems a logical place to be.

Prospects for West improved when the heart finesse worked at trick 1 but what next? West had to be careful as there were very limited entries to their wonderful hand. There was a very wise play at tricks 2 and 3, indeed one very necessary one:

 

That play is to play a small diamond to J at trick 2 and then 4 playing 6 from hand.  If West starts on clubs from the top, the 4-2 break means that when North wins the fourth round of clubs, without this precaution, they can trap declarer in dummy and if West had retained J in dummy, they would lose a diamond trick as well since they would need to overtake on the first round of the suit.

Ducking a club enabled West to continue playing clubs when North played a major at trick 4 and they could then enjoy all those minor winners and come to 12 tricks.

Calling South

Yet, need that have been so? Let’s look at the situation from South’s point of view when they heard West bid 6NT. While there was no guarantee, it did sound to South that the A and perhaps Q were likely to be in dummy. Had East opened 1 or 2, this was even more so. Thus, South could anticipate that a spade lead, dummy’s first bid or implied suit, might benefit the defence.

Time, therefore, for a Lightner Double, asking for an unusual lead, likely to be dummy’s first bid suit. That would prove hugely successful for the defence here. If declarer finesses, there will be a loser in each black suit and the same will apply if they take their ace at trick 1. This double only occurred at one table and that table saw the slam defeated. Without this double, the heart lead seemed so much more logical from the North hand, logical but should not have been successful. 

With the heart finesse working, 6 of either minor would be successful though there were many slam casualties on this deal. That was despite the 10 being by far the most common lead against 6NT. We can only presume that some declarers did not take the precaution recommended above.

Richard Solomon

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