All News

Now is the hour.

Overbidding can sometimes be rewarded with a helpful dummy, maybe even helpful defence or a fortunate lie of the cards. On other occasions, you need to find some way to avoid the inevitable defeat. The dummy below was not all that South hoped for:

 

3 showed a club shortage and four card heart support and on the back of some top class support for their partner’s opening suit and no wastage in clubs, South had a go for game. West led J. East played 2 (low encouraging). Any hope? We are playing Pairs. 

While the high trumps were very useful, their partner’s ace or high cards would have been better placed elsewhere leaving a singleton small club. At least, though, West had not led their suit as three rounds of spades immediately would have left South with no hope.

As it was, there was no real chance if declarer won A, drew trumps, assuming a kind fall, and gave up a diamond. Dummy’s spades were not particularly threatening to the defence. If East held at least three diamonds, headed by the queen, the switch from their side would be easy and obvious.

There was though one thing in declarer’s favour, the lie of the spade honours. While not a certainty, it did not seem that West had all three high spade honours, with the K likely to be in East’s hand. While the spade switch might be obvious for East, it might not be quite so obvious to West at trick 2!

Ducking the J at trick 1 could see the contract 2 down if the lead was a singleton and West played a spade at trick 2, getting to their partner’s hand with that or the following trick. A diamond ruff would follow, maybe even two ruffs in the unlikely event that East had two entries in spades. Those are  pessimistic thoughts. What occurred was much more likely.

 

Left on lead,West may well decide to either go passive with a club or trump exit or even just continue diamonds. East might have started with KQ2. Indeed, West did continue with their second diamond.

It was then all plain sailing for South to play trumps from the top, a diamond to the king, a club to the ace and two more diamonds, discarding two spades from hand. Declarer ended with an overtrick having lost just one diamond and one spade.

It is not a question of losing a trick in a suit. It is a case of when you lose it and to which defender. The “when” above was definitely at trick 1….and the right defender was definitely to West.

 

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items