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BEATING OR NOT BEATING THE PART-SCORE

Sorry, no great end-play to make an impossible slam this week. This is routine every day what went right or in this case wrong defending a part-score. The first question is after an illuminating sequence of:

West          North         East            South

                                                          1

Pass            2               All Pass

what do you lead from:

 AJ7

 Q87

 J73

 AT98

The first thing to do is eliminate both black suits, a trump for obvious reasons and a club because you neither want to lead nor under-lead a suit headed by the ace which has so much potential for extra tricks. So, which red suit? Leading from Jxx is really ugly. Therefore, for me, the only lead is a small heart..but West chose a diamond, the 7. Let’s see what happened.

 

 

East was not sure about the opening lead and rose with the ace to continue the suit. South won with the king and played a low club won in dummy. The Q was played to dispose of the losing heart in declarer’s hand and was followed by a low spade from dummy to the 9, 10 and West’s jack. The A and another club, ruffed, would now have saved the overtrick but West exited tamely with a heart. South took advantage of the soft defence by winning and leading K (“where there’s a 9, there’s a (doubleton) queen”) and made an overtrick, two tricks more than he should have done.

What went wrong for the defence? As it happened, a diamond lead was not critical though the choice of the 7 gave East a problem. It could have been a singleton lead. We lead “low from an honour”. What do we mean by an honour? Perhaps in this situation we mean AKQ ignoring the jack because we avoid leading away from the jack, if we can. So maybe West was correct to lead the 7 and East just has to guess that the lead maybe a doubleton, even from three cards and therefore playing the 9 at trick one might be best. Oh, next time, lead a low heart!

Had the 9 been played, no damage to the defence would have occurred. No doubt, declarer would still have played a club to dummy with a spade following in the same fashion as above. To beat the contract now, West must lead A and give East a ruff. (The importance of East giving count to their partner is critical. Playing natural count, East plays high, low to show a doubleton and the ruff can be given.)What if South had 6 spades? Bad luck, perhaps, but if South had six spades headed by the KQ, they might have played low to the king on the first round. 

After the club ruff, the defence can then attack hearts and get their trick there along with two trumps, the minor aces as well as the club ruff, one down. The same six tricks are available after a heart lead.

2 making 3…a bottom for the defence and Deal Master Pro told them they could make 9 tricks in diamonds, just to rub the salt in! Bidding over 2 was very risky. You cannot get a top off every board. Sound defence should ensure you do not get a bottom.

Richard Solomon

 

 

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