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Making the most of good fortune.

You escaped the lead which would defeat your slightly ambitious contract. Yet, the contract failed, partly through sensible defence, partly because of a bad break in a side suit and partly because the declarer committed a small but significant error. Two of these three points could not be avoided but the third could…

 

With East opening the bidding and holding the A as expected, a heart lead from West would have defeated this game (2 hearts, A and a trump).

However, West led a club to dummy’s 10 and East’s ace. Back came a second club (West who led 3 played 9 on the next round). What is your plan to make 10 tricks? Do not worry about the overtricks! Trumps break 3-2.  

South won the Q at trick 2 (they might have unblocked Q at trick 1 as East would surely have inserted the J had they held it). However, there was no problem in playing a trump to dummy. In fact, South cashed A and crossed to dummy’s K (from West’s Q, it looked like East held the unplayed J) to play K and discard a small heart from the South hand as West followed with J.

Next came a diamond to the ace and then K. These were the four hands:

All would have been well had both defenders followed to the second diamond. However, East neither played a diamond on the second round nor was kind enough to ruff. So, South ruffed a diamond but still there was no over-ruff. South needed to get back to their own hand to ruff their other little diamond. The only way back was via a heart ruff though South still had one heart. So, they lost the lead to East by playing K. East won their A and was then unkind enough to lay down the J drawing a trump from declarer and at the same time, dummy’s last trump. A second round of hearts sealed declarer’s fate. They had to ruff in hand and were left with a diamond loser at trick 13 to be one down.

West could hardly be blamed for failing to find an initial heart lead but South would have survived even the bad diamond break had they played just one round of trumps early on, a spade to the king when in at trick 2. Then after playing K, they exit at that point with the K.

If East plays a second round of trumps, declarer wins in hand and however they play diamonds, they will have the vital entry back to the South hand with a heart ruff to ruff the remaining diamond loser in dummy. At some point, East will score their spade winner but that will only be the third and last trick for the defence.

If East exits their diamond, South wins, cashes A and proceeds as before. The key was to only draw one round of trumps and lose their heart loser early. 

Were at the point when East wins A, they lead a fourth round of clubs, declarer could still be in trouble and could suffer a diamond over-ruff to be defeated if West ruffs with Q.

There would have been no problems for South had diamonds broke 3-3 or 4-2 but a little better timing would have seen them overcome an even worse diamond break.

Reason to lead

Something dynamic for Sunday. Well, we need some dramatic words to introduce a lead to an uncontested part-score! Not the kind of problem to stay very long in the memory after the cards have been put away in the board.

But wait! There’s 5 imps to be gained or lost here. Teammates have made 1NT at the other table. That’s quite a significant gain if you can beat this “exciting” contract.

 1NT is in the 12-14 hcp range. 2is, of course, a transfer promising at least 5 hearts.

Find a lead and also the reason you have made that lead. Five imps perhaps if you find it but a bonus (we can negotiate what later) if you say why you have made that lead.

Whoever said leading is random? Maybe sometimes less random than you think. Bet you cannot wait for Sunday now….

Richard Solomon

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