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A secret on the side.

You be the judge here. Both defenders erred but who was the cause of their misdefence? The only person blameless was dummy!

 

 

 

2 is a standard Weak 2. What is your choice of opening lead? The game is Pairs.

Well, you know your partner has some high cards from North’s pass and your own moderate hand. You could choose a passive club or a near passive diamond…but you decide to be more adventurous and start off with Q. Maybe you can secure a heart ruff. After all, the place heart honours are least likely to be are in declarer’s hand.

Dummy is interesting…and so is trick 1.

 

On Q lead, your partner plays 8 and South 3. What next?

Flushed with the apparent success of the opening lead, West continued with 10 covered with J and won by East's K. Trick 3 saw East play A with declarer following to both tricks with 4 and then 6. West discarded 7, discouraging, on the third round of hearts.

They awaited the play of East’s 4^th heart (absolutely no cost as if South discarded, West would score their small trump.) but it never came. Instead East played A and a second diamond, with no queen appearing as J forced K in dummy.

All seemed normal as declarer played a small trump from dummy, South’s J was taken by West’s A. West confidently led a third round of diamonds expecting to see their partner ruff… but the ruff came from South as this was the full lay-out:

2 made for the loss of three heart tricks and A and A. Yet, as you can see, the defence lost their second diamond trick. While East was too precipitous in cashing their A, their partner could have saved the poor result at trick 2. That 8 could have been the lowest of 4 cards, including 9, but, unless the A was with South, it would seem that a diamond from West at trick 3 would have helped their partner.

East was of course afraid of any diamond trick for the defence disappearing on clubs. Perhaps, West’s 7 was a message to their partner that they had control of the trump suit. Again, West could have ruffed the third round of hearts but expected their partner to hold 4 hearts…and a fourth round of hearts could not hurt the defence. Ultimately, while it was East's error, West had two chances to save their partner from cashing the A and did not take either. East's mistake but West's error. 

Beating the contract was not paramount in Pairs. Restricting overtricks is equally important too. Certainly playing A was no way to beat the contract. Would you as East have trusted that diamond signal and exited a trump, with those ominous looking clubs in dummy?

It can be so hard to take all one’s top tricks in defence to a game or a part-score. What made it harder was South’s decision to open 2 with 4 hearts on the side.

Here, had South passed in first seat, North would either have opened 1 or 1NT depending on system and with the opponents vulnerable, it looks like the contract would have ended in 2….by North after 1NT opening…. or even 2 after Stayman, by South. Either a trump lead from East, against 2, or a diamond lead against 2,from West, would beat the respective contracts. It would be unusual for East to make a take-out double of the 1 opening though that, this time, would lead East-West to an excellent scoring 3 making contract. 

Either red suit lead here should have defeated 2, though South had a secret weapon, the fourth heart. Is it a crime to open 2 with four rag hearts at favourable vulnerability? I do not think so.

Tomorrow, we will see a deal where the weak 2 opening backfired when the partner did not imagine they were facing a 4-card heart suit too! Would you?

Richard Solomon

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