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Hand played on |
16th July 2009 |
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Board number |
19 |
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Dealer |
South |
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Vulnerability |
EW Vul |
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Submitted by |
Alaric Cundy |
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North ♠ AKQJ ♥ AQ75 ♦ 743 ♣ QJ |
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West ♠ 98762 ♥ T ♦ Q982 ♣ 954 |
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East ♠ 54 ♥ KJ632 ♦ A6 ♣ AT83 |
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North |
Bidding:
East |
South |
West |
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South ♠ T3 ♥ 984 ♦ KJT5 ♣ K762 |
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1♥ 3NT
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No End
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No 1NT |
No No
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The answer to the question posed in the title of this piece in this example is - "the contract!"
The bidding was straightforward enough and likely or not it was repeated at many tables.
West got the Defence off to a good start by avoiding the 'obvious' spade lead. On such a lead Declarer has time to establish the King of Clubs and still may have entries in diamonds back to hand, and may well come to four spades, one heart, two diamonds, and two clubs for nine tricks in total.
In practice West started with a low diamond to partner's Ace and a diamond was returned, ducked to West's Queen. A third diamond was led, won by Declarer, but now there were no more entries back to the South hand and Declarer is facing problems - especially as East had signalled strongly on the third diamond for a heart switch .
In practice Declarer cashed the winning diamond, then the top four spades, and East had to find a total of four discards and Declarer had to find two. Declarer chose to throw the two of clubs and the four of hearts. East was sweating a bit but threw two clubs and two hearts, leaving this position at the end, with the lead in Dummy. By now the Defence had two tricks and Declarer had six.
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North ♠ ♥ AQ7 ♦ ♣ QJ |
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West ♠ 9 ♥ T ♦ ♣ 954 |
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East ♠ ♥ KJ3 ♦ ♣ AT |
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South ♠ ♥ 98 ♦ ♣ K76 |
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The Queen of Clubs was led from Dummy and East correctly took it and returned his last club. Declarer now faced a dilemma. East could be counted for having just three hearts left, and Declarer hoped that they were the King, Jack, and Ten, so he sacrificed a Club trick by crashing the King and queen and led the nine of hearts, hoping to duck it into East, who would be end-played and forced to concede the last two tricks to Dummy's Ace and Queen of hearts. That plan disintegrated when West produced the ten of hearts. The best Declarer could do now was to cover the Queen, losing to the King. East appeared to be end-played but Declarer's earlier careless lack of unblocking the hearts by choosing to discard the 4 rather than the 8 on the long spades let East off the hook. When East led the 3 of hearts at trick 12 Declarer faced the unenviable choice of allowing the 8 to win in hand, and conceding the 13th trick to West's nine of clubs, or winning the heart in Dummy and conceding the last trick to East's Jack of hearts. Of course had Declarer discarded more wisely earlier in the hand his last heart would have been the 4 not the eight and Dummy's Ace and 7 would have taken the last two tricks...
Oh well, it's only a game!