From                   7th January, 2009

                                          Difficulty            * * * * 

                                          N-S Vul                                      Hands Rotated

                                                                                             for Convenience

Warning! The E-W hands are not the same as those that were actually played, we have meddled with them to give you a problem worthy of your skill.

West leads the ♥Q.  One route to 10 tricks is to ruff the opening lead, lose the ♠A, ruff the Heart continuation, cross to Dummy with a trump, unblock the ♣AJ, then back to hand with a trump.  Declarer is now out of trumps, but she has her 10 tricks.

That’s fine, but the defense can do better by ducking the first round of trumps.  Even worse, trumps might be 4-1!  So, try again.  10 tricks, please, if you can manage it.

SOLUTION

The way to preserve trump control is to let Dummy take over the burden of ruffing Hearts.  On the opening Heart lead, Declarer pitches a Diamond.  Then another Diamond (better make it the Queen) goes on the second round of Hearts.  The defense does best to persist with Hearts, which Dummy ruffs (Declarer pitching a Club).  Dummy plays a Spade, and let’s say that the defense ducks that!  Good play, what next?  Let’s look at the diagram first:

It was clearly correct for Declarer to refrain from ruffing the first two Hearts.  And West did well to: (a) lead a third round of Hearts, even though it conceded a ruff and sluff, and (b) duck the first Spade.

Now, Declarer has two ways to proceed:

-         Either: Play another Spade (overtaking in hand), losing to West’s Ace.  Yet another Heart is led, and Declarer ruffs that.  Now, because the trumps were 4-1, Declarer must use up her last trump to draw the West’s remaining trump, after which some luck in the minors is required.

-         Or: Unblock the ♣AJ before playing the second Spade.  This runs the risk that trumps are 3-2 all along and that the ♠A is doubleton and a defensive Club ruff can be had.

We like the first line ourselves, which may seem unfortunate, as the ♦K is offside and the Clubs are 4-2.  Down one?  Of course not!  When West shows up with ♠A it will be clear from the bidding that East must have the ♦K.  So, Declarer won’t try the doomed Diamond finesse, instead she will inwardly chortle when, on the last round of Spades, East is squeezed!  An interesting battle of wits between North and East.

Home     PlayArchives    BiddingArchives    Conventions