From                  Wednesday Game Archives

                                          Theme               Counting the Distribution

                                          Difficulty           * *

                                          Dlr North          Both Vul             Hands Rotated

                                                                                               for Convenience

Perhaps that 4♥ bid was a bit ambitious, but that’s what happens when the opponents preempt, sometimes they push you overboard.  And sometimes (quite often, it seems) Partner put down a most unsuitable Dummy.  West cashes the Ace, King, and Queen of Clubs, East pitching the T♠ and the 4♠ on the second and third rounds.  Then, she shifts to the 3♦!  The defense have given you a chance!  How do you plan to take advantage of this good fortune?

SOLUTION

It should not be hard to figure out West is void in Spades.  All that you have to do is guess the Diamond situation, and this hopeless contract will make.  So, win the Diamond on the board, taking care to unblock the Ten in your hand … this will allow you to take a later finesse, if necessary.  Now, draw trumps, discovering that West started with 4 of them.

Time for the Diamond guess.  Guess?  What guess?  You have a count on the hand … West started with 0-4-3-6 distribution, and your careful unblock of the T♦ proved to be unnecessary as the suit is evenly divided.  This is the full deal:

Keys to Success

   - Unblocking the T♦ (unblocking in preparation for a later finesse, if necessary)

   - Deducing that West must be 0-4-3-6 and playing for the Diamond drop

Postscript

Clearly it was necessary for East to ruff that third round of Clubs and play on Spades.  Which defender was to blame?  Primarily West who should have led the Jack on the third round, inducing East to ruff so that he can get his Spade ruff (he doesn't know that East has the A♠).  East may reasonably have thought that West's plan was to play a 4th round of Clubs next, trying to promote a trump trick by forcing Dummy's Queen to ruff or else by getting East to apply an upper-cut (picture West with two Spades and ♥Txxx and East with ♥9).  Of course, East can tell that his low trumps have no upper-cut potential, so he can shoulder some of the blame for not ruffing the third round anyway.