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Hand played on |
28th June 2007 |
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Board number 13 |
Red Section |
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Dealer |
North |
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Vulnerability |
Both |
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Submitted by |
Alaric Cundy |
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North ♠ KQT52 ♥ J83 ♦ T ♣ AJ82 |
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West ♠ A9 ♥ Q964 ♦ KJ872 ♣K4 |
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East ♠ 83 ♥ K52 ♦ Q54 ♣ Q9765 |
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North |
Bidding:
East |
South |
West |
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South ♠ J764 ♥ AT7 ♦ A963 ♣ T3 |
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1♠ No
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No 3♣
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2♠ 3♠ |
x End |
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North's opening was rather minimal, but South's original 2♠ response was 'top of the range' and hence worth a second try. West's take-out double implied a heart suit, so East obediently led a heart at trick one - and that enabled Declarer to pick up an extra trick in the suit, after ducking the opening lead to West's Queen. West switched to the King of clubs, taken by Declarer. Declarer ran the ten of spades to West's Ace - carefully retaining the Jack in Dummy. West led a second club to partner's queen. Had Declarer been careless with the first round of trumps and played the Jack from Dummy, West would have been able to over-ruff dummy if a third club was led. In practice, the show was now over for the defence and a total of ten tricks materialised, with one loser in each of spades, hearts, and clubs.
East cannot be blamed for the opening heart lead, but without it Declarer is likely to lose a second heart. The best defence is to play completely passively - say an initial trump lead to the Ace and a trump return. Thereafter, whenever the Defenders get in, they play on diamonds - avoiding opening up either hearts or clubs for Declarer. Now the only hope Declarer has for a tenth trick is to manufacture an extra club trick in hand for a heart discard from Dummy. After the trumps are drawn, Declarer crosses to Dummy with the Ace of diamonds, and runs the ten of clubs, but so long as West covers that, Declarer will have an inescapable fourth loser.
3♠+1 was a common result, because at the table it is not easy for East / West to defend accurately. However, two East / West pairs got the rewards they deserved courtesy of an accurate defence, but one pair fared even better when they were allowed to play in 3♦ and then handled the bad trump break to finish with one off, for -100 and a complete top. Against 3♦, now it is North / South's turn to refuse to play on the heart suit, and then they should collect five obvious tricks courtesy of one spade, two hearts, one diamond and one club, but if they can score a second trump trick then their score of +200 will trump all those scores of +170!
At one table the stakes were raised - and doubtless hearts were pumping - as North / South reach 4♠ doubled... This is now a clear top / bottom situation, in effect coming down to the play of the heart suit... It was East / West whose hearts sank at the end of the hand...