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Tough but not Terminal.

Bad trump breaks can be annoying but do not necessarily mean one cannot make one’s contract. Just look on them as a challenge! So, here is one for you:

 

You show a strong hand by jumping to 3, game-forcing. Partner too shows a better hand than they might have with 3 being stronger than a jump to game ("slow arrival" principals). However, outside aces, your jump could be better and you do not have a fit with your partner’s spades. Also, it was likely your partner had only 3 trumps as they could have shown a game-force hand a round earlier with a Jacoby 2NT. So, South contented themselves with a raise to game.

North led A and a slam now did not seem much worse than a trump finesse. West continued with a second spade and you discarded a diamond. Yet, when you laid down K, East discarded a diamond, too! Suddenly, conservatism had the potential of success! Where to from here?

You do need a bit of luck but you can turn three seemingly inevitable trump losers into two. The aim of the game is to cash side-suit winners so that West has to ruff and lead into your AJ.

So, let’s try AK and ruffing a club. Here are the four hands:

 

We can cash A and then K noting the fall of Q from West. Normally, you might intend to ruff a diamond and then a second club but that Q might put you off doing that. While West might be false-carding from QJ8 (they might just have found that as an opening lead), the winning line is to believe the Q as a true card and play a third round of spades discarding your remaining club. West is still following suit.

After losing trick 1, you have won two spade tricks, two tricks in each minor and ruffed one club in dummy. Along with K, that is 8 winners and there are only four cards left…and you need only two more winners….and West’s last four cards are trumps, as indeed are declarer’s!

So, play a spade or diamond from dummy and  5 from the South hand. West has to win the trick and return a trump into your AJ. Mission accomplished. That’s the kind of trump break you should enjoy. You discover the bad news very early. 4-1 breaks do not appear until a little later and you may not be able to recover.

There was only one little problem. Your contract was 5! Unlucky.

Richard Solomon 

 

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