or so it seemed…..and indeed was for some players. Some even made an overtrick…and yet some recorded a minus score in their seemingly simple game contract.
At some tables, West led a diamond to East’s ♦️A and East switched to a club, fearful of clubs disappearing on spades or to their singleton spade hopeful of playing a second diamond to West when in with ♥️K to score a spade ruff to beat the contract. When either of those switches occurred, South had a very easy route to at least 10 tricks by playing trumps and losing at worst a trump, a diamond (already lost) and a club trick.
However, what would be your plan should East continue with a second diamond at trick 2? It looks pretty easy in that you would ruff and start drawing trumps, without difficulty, as long as there was not a 5-0 trump break. Yet when you played a trump (any one), West discarded a low diamond! What then?
The plain fact then was that when East captured your trump continuation with their ♥️K, and continued a third round of diamonds, they would have more trumps than you, South, did. At that point, you had a certain diamond and two trump losers. You could no longer rely on the spade suit to discard potential losing clubs (unless in the unlikely event that East held 4 spades). Assuming you had played ♥️A on the first round and then a second trump, you now needed to get to dummy as soon as you can….and that means on the first round of spades, to take that club finesse….and cross your fingers that it worked:
Two rounds of spades and you would say goodbye to dummy and would have to lose a club as well and thus the contract would fail.
Had East switched to the spade at trick 2, the contract would succeed as there was no entry to the West hand to get the spade ruff. South could ruff the diamond return (or play ♣️A if a club was played), draw trumps and enjoy the remaining spades (as long as SJ was played on the first round). Similarly, the club switch at trick 2 would be fine for South whether or not they played ♣️A.
A spade lead at trick 1?
There was a different initial lead which was potentially very unpleasant for South, a spade, especially a rather nebulous ♠️4. South now must anticipate a danger, not just of a 5-0 trump break, but even a 3-2 trump break where East in particular has the doubleton ♥️K and West a singleton spade. When ♠️J wins and declarer plays a low heart (best not to finesse) and the 5-0 trump break is exposed, they are at the cross-roads. Win ♥️A and if East does have a spade shortage, then it is a club finesse now or never…and taking a club finesse at that point may even expose declarer to a bad break in clubs when spades break 3-2!
So, South must win ♥️A and take 2 club finesses before continuing trumps. Otherwise, East wins ♥️K and under-leads ♦️A (West has the opportunity to signal which minor to play on that first round of trumps) to score their spade ruff. A trump or diamond exit now beats the contract as declarer cannot get to dummy to take the club finesse.
“Easy Peasy?” Not quite!
Had South responded 2♣️ instead of 2 ♥️, North may well have ended as declarer in 4♠️. An inspired heart lead from East (♥️7 suggesting a diamond switch if West does get to ruff at trick 1..such good things can happen!) followed by a second ruff leaves declarer with no choice but to draw trumps (but no overtake of ♠️J if West exited with a second diamond, ruffed in dummy) and take the club finesse. Another not so easy way to what otherwise might have been 10 fairly easy tricks.
So, just be very careful where a contract seems straightforward. “What if” are two words which should be constantly in your mind. Some seemingly straightforward contracts might turn out to be somewhat more awkward than you could initially imagine.
Richard Solomon
