Any bridge teacher worth his salt will certainly give you one bit of universally accepted advice. Take your time at trick one after the initial lead to come up with a plan and contemplate the potential pitfalls that lie ahead. This is particularly true when the contract appears iron clad and no obvious glitches are in sight. Try your luck with this mundane looking hand which felled a number of aspiring talents.
After an uncomplicated auction that pinpoints South with at least 5 hearts, 4 clubs and 18+ HCP, West led ♠ K against the final contract of 4♥. Declarer surveyed dummy with contentment and a reassuring sense of security. Reasoning that it was unlikely that the losses could go beyond a diamond, a spade and a trump he hopped up with ♠ A at trick one. After cashing 2 top trumps, he realised that a trump loser was inevitable when West discarded a spade on the second round. Now it all came down to not losing a club trick. After winning ♣ K and crossing to dummy with the Ace, he continued with a third club. Would you have done better?
East ruffed the third club, put his partner in with a spade and ruffed the club his partner returned. Since a diamond loser cannot be avoided, declarer was one trick short eventually. North was quick to console his partner pointing out that the contract was bound to come home if trumps were not to divide 4-1 or the clubs split evenly or if East had the club length.
What was even more galling was the entry to the West hand at an inconvenient moment.
South was distinctly unfortunate on the first three counts but could definitely have averted the fourth blow by playing low at trick one. By refusing to win the first spade, he successfully severs communication between the defense and prevents East from ruffing 2 clubs. Declarer’s initial instinct that the contract was assured turned out to be correct – his play was not!
The next hand saw South open 1NT and West overcall 3♠. Playing a Matchpoint Pairs event and lacking 4 hearts, North saw no merit in beating around the bush and bid 6NT.
As declarer caught his first glimpse of dummy, he regretted not having opened 1♦. After a brief pause, he realised both contracts depended on locating the diamond Queen so the partnership had landed in the best spot by virtue of North’s serendipity! Since West is marked with at least 6 spades, declarer applied the “principle of vacant spaces” to conclude that East was likely to be longer than West in diamonds. Winning the lead of ♠ K with the Ace, he confidently led a diamond to the King and then played the Jack with the intention of finessing unless the Queen appeared.
Catastrophe struck when East discarded a club on the second round. Cursing his luck in no uncertain terms, he wondered what more could have been done since he had followed the odds.
At this point, an elderly kibitzer suggested ducking the lead. If declarer had been dealt a second small spade, instead of the knave, this might be an almost reflexive action. However, the thought that West would know that he held precisely AJ seemed to make an illusory difference. Since the contract hinges solely on finding the diamond Queen, declarer’s interests are best served by pinpointing the distribution of his LHO. After winning the second spade return (virtually guaranteed after ducking the lead), he knows that West started with 7 spades. Intending to get a count on the other suits, he now cashes 2 top clubs and discovers that West started life with a singleton. He now cashes all the top hearts and is delighted to find his LHO unable to follow to the third round. Hey presto! West must hold 3 diamonds, so all that remains to be done is to cash diamond Ace to cater to a stiff Queen with East. If the royal fails to show up, play a small diamond towards dummy confident that the finesse will work. West was dealt ♠KQ109754 ♥103 ♦ Q73 ♣6!
In case West had produced a second club or third heart, South knows that the diamonds are splitting evenly.
The million dollar question comes up when West follows to 3 rounds of hearts. Is LHO 7-4-1-1 or 7-3-2-1? For those left wondering, the odds favour the finesse.
Finally, a wonderful double dummy opportunity for those blessed with superior analytical capabilities! Take a look at all four hands and judge whether declarer succeeds in scoring 6♥ after an initial 1♦ bid by East or the defence prevails after the lead of the diamond 2.
This is how the play went. At trick one declarer ruffed East’s ♦K, crossed to dummy with a trump and led a low spade. East is bedeviled by “Morton’s Fork” but plays allow and allows declarer to win spade King. After drawing trumps, ending in dummy, declarer now plays another diamond and it is irrelevant what East chooses to do since a spade gets discarded on the third diamond. Neither does it help for East to win the spade Ace at trick three.
A diamond winner is set up as before allowing three clubs to be parked on 2 spades and a diamond. So you have your answer….or do you?
The wizened old master perched in the East seat played low on the first diamond! Now declarer is helpless despite scoring a wholly unexpected trick. The premature discard is worthless. If he pitches a low spade at trick 1, his King will drop on the Ace and the two good spades in dummy cannot take care of 3 losing clubs. Should he opt to discard a club, he must still lose a club and a spade!
As Lewis Carroll is said to have remarked, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do.”
Sanjoy Bhattacharyya is Managing Partner at Fortuna Capital and an avid bridge player.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.
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