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For Junior and Intermediate players and others…even US pros! It’s Fri day.

We all hate it. We have the king and the jack and our opponent leads a small card in the suit. Who has the queen and who has the ace? It may seem like a guess but sometimes it is no guess at all. Watch!

 

 

West’s double showed a good raise in spades. You thought that maybe 9 tricks in no-trumps might be easier than 11 in diamonds. After West 7, at the sight of dummy, you rather wished you were playing in diamonds! At trick 1, East plays 10. What’s your plan?

Well, the plan comes in two parts. Part 1 is to do the normal thing when you have only one stop in a danger suit. Duck for as long as you can until you have to win your ace. So, you play low and when East returns J, play low again. West plays K and continues 8 which you win with your ace. You have discarded 2 clubs from dummy.

Part 2 is also the normal thing when your contract is in doubt…or even has no play! Run your long suit. Take some tricks and hopefully make it a little difficult for your opponents! Let’s see all four hands:

 

East had to find 4 discards as you ran your diamonds. They chose 3 hearts and a small club. West’s only discard was a heart. You threw 2 more clubs from dummy, leaving just KJ and the heart suit.

Next, declarer played a small heart and West played low (it made no difference if they took their ace) and after winning K, you played Q which again was ducked and then a third heart to West’s ace. It was important that you retained J as an entry to hand to play clubs if needed. Meanwhile East had to find 3 more discards and threw their remaining 3 spades.

At trick 12, West led 4 and all 4 players had 2 clubs left. A guess? No way. A certainty? Yes! Declarer knew where A had to be or else why did East discard all their spades? If East had A, they would have discarded any small club they held and taken the last 2 tricks to beat the contract. Declarer played K and that was their 9^th trick (5 diamonds, 2 hearts and a trick in each black suit). Contract made. Lucky contract? Certainly but at the end, there was no guess.

To make 3NT, South had followed 2 basic principles…holding up A and then running their long suit. Prospects looked very dim for declarer but you never know. South needed spades to break 6-3, not 5-4, and for West to hold both missing aces. Interestingly, a top US player won A at trick 1 and soon regretted doing so. Don’t forget the basics!

5 also requires a guess in the club suit but is a better contract in that it might still make with a 5-4 spade break. So, just watch those discards and imagine what East would discard if they held A. If you did that, then at trick 12, you have no guess, a certainty!

West might have won the first or second heart and played a low club then. However, even then there would be no guess. You must just play West for A. Easy game? Sometimes!

Richard Solomon