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Bad luck….or bad play?

It was not South’s day. Firstly, they decided against penalising East by passing their 2 overcall and then passing the anticipated take-out double from their partner. There was too much chance of finding a major fit. However, that did not materialise and South settled for what seemed to be a fairly comfortable ride in 3NT.

 

 

Dummy could, as usual, have been better but they tabled a decent long suit and good major fillers. East contributed K to the 2 opening lead with South, perhaps unwisely, parting with a small spade from dummy.

What is your plan?

Declarer won A, played K and then set about how to get to dummy. Oh, they did notice that East had discarded 4 on this second trick. They played 2 to 9 which lost to East’s J. Let’s look at all four hands:

 

East’s 8 was covered by 9 and won by West’s Q. 6 was returned to East’s 7 and declarer’s J. Two small diamonds had to be thrown from dummy on these two club tricks. The news was bad for South as they played a second small heart to East’s A. East now had three winning clubs to take. After that, dummy’s remaining heart provided an entry, eventually, to the AQ in dummy and declarer took the last 5 tricks to be down 2. So much for an easy ride!

Where did South go wrong as there were 9 tricks to be taken? It went wrong quite early. Getting to dummy was always going to be a problem especially when East held K and AJ. Yet, as South soon saw, the diamond suit was not going to run even when they got there.

An Early Error!

They should have seized their only quick entry to dummy very early, overtaking K with the ace. This might not feel a triumph if the J was in a three card suit but if the J was either singleton or doubleton, it would be very much a winning approach. Of course, here, that was not the case. Yet, it would give South the opportunity to run diamonds when they eventually got there, had the suit broken 4-1 or where the jack was in a 3-card suit. 

Overtaking had here other advantages.  The bad diamond break meant that South could only set up one extra trick by giving up a diamond to J. (If South played 3 rounds of diamonds, the defence would prevail as long as West played Q and a second club). Therefore, declarer would need to turn their attention to the major suits. Here, it allowed declarer to attack hearts from the right side, by running 10 after cashing Q. East must duck. Next will come Q and the majors will then provide South with enough tricks even if diamonds would not.  

Even as the play went, South could have done better by playing low on 8. West’s opening 2 lead and East’s K were both clues as to where Q was. Playing low might feel strange but would have either blocked the club suit if West played low or given South an extra club trick had West played Q on 8.

The main point is that South had many successful possibilities by overtaking K at trick 2 than hoping diamonds would run when they did reach dummy. East’s overcall meant that getting to dummy would likely be a real problem for South as indeed it was...and with Q and J with West, the missing major suit honours were very likely with East. 

9 declarers tried 3NT on a club lead but only 4 were successful. Also, on this occasion, though South passing and North reopening with a double would bring North-South a plus score, it would not be as big as making 3NT. Had South passed, North would likely have competed with 2 rather than double.

Overall, South would have done much better to overtake K at trick 2 though not perhaps for the reason they originally intended.

Richard Solomon

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