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A Difficult Deal.

Today’s deal is difficult for both sides. We will look at it through the eyes of North-South. It shows the value of good Hand Evaluation and then good play. The game is Pairs and overtricks are worth having though for a few North-South pairs, it was a case of trying to record a plus score where going down in one’s contract would have been a disaster.

Firstly, though, what bid would you make as South with this hand:

 

 

 

South may only have 11 hcps but their hand is worth much more than that because of its void and also because of its long trump suit. Where we have a side-suit void and trump agreement, we can add 5 points on thus making our hand worth at least 16hcp. We might only bid 3 but jumping to game would be a reasonable action. If we only bid 3, we would rely on our opponents to compete to 4 to allow us to bid to game.

At most tables, whether bid slowly or more quickly, the final contract was 4 though at a few tables, East-West bid to 5 and South competed to 5. Let’s look at the North-South hands:

 

We will see later that 5 was a very good bid by East as that contract only fails by 1 trick. Meanwhile, in 5, there is a certain club loser and A has to be lost. Our problem is not to lose 2 heart tricks. Looking at our heart pips, that looks tough but it is possible. It would be lovely if A was led at trick 1 but no such luck. West led A.

We ruff and draw trumps in 2 rounds, West having 2. With a problem like this, we are best to lose what we have to lose and either the opposition will help us by playing a heart or we can possibly draw a conclusion as to which opponent holds the A. We will see why it is important to know that.

So, after drawing trumps, we lead a club towards dummy’s Q. East takes that trick with their A and alas plays Q...still no help! Let’s stop and think. We know West overcalled. They hold A and almost certainly K. East has Q and A. West would need 10 hcp minimum to call 2. With no honours in spades and no more than J at most in clubs, they are strong favourites to hold A. How, knowing that, does that help us?

 

If the opponents will not play the heart suit, we will have to do so ourselves. There is just one lay-out of the heart suit that will enable us to play the suit for just one loser, the ace.

If West has A singleton, then we will lose a second trick in the suit to J.

If West has 3 or 4 hearts, we are going to lose 2 tricks because if we lead a heart from the South hand, they will either play low on the first round or else play 10 if they hold AJT. We have to lose 2 heart tricks.

What though if West has A doubleton? Assuming we lead hearts from the South hand (if we play a low heart from dummy towards Q, West can win A), West must play low or else they automatically give us 3 heart tricks. So, the K wins the first trick on the dummy. Next we play a low heart from dummy and although East plays 10, we play a low heart from our hand, forcing West to play A.

Magic! Despite having really poor heart cards, we only lose one trick in the suit. It’s not magic: it’s good play because you worked out which opponent was likely to hold A and then took your only chance of making the contract.

You would take this line whether you were in 4 where it is just a case of scoring an overtrick or if you were in 5 where if you did not play for this lay-out, your contract would fail.

So, excellent if you played this way and bad luck to East-West who had pushed you all the way to an uncomfortable contract. In 5, West only loses one trick in each major suit and one club trick, as long as they take 2 finesses in that suit: an excellent sacrifice against a making 4 game. 

It’s not easy and 5 would seem to need some opposition help to make. Yet, that’s not so if you can work out which opponent is likely to hold A.

Richard Solomon

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