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For Less Experienced Players. The Wrong Hand.

It did not seem at the time such a big error to make…and it was not 100% terminal but a tiny mistake caused our declarer today to fail in what seemed to be a rock-solid contract.

 

Your partner put down all those diamond cards but they were right not to penalise the opponents as they had lots of spades, too. Well, “right” as long as you make your 4 contract. They led A.

Maybe South was thinking about how big a penalty their side could have extracted from 2x. The answer was a very small penalty, probably just one down. Even that would have been a better result that what happened at the table.

Let’s see. South ruffed the opening lead and lay down the A with both defenders following suit and then played K to draw the remaining trump.

Careless!

“What next?” which was the question South should have asked themselves a round earlier. It seemed wrong to lead a heart from their hand away from the king and playing a trump to dummy at that point would waste one of dummy’s trump ruffs. Had South counted their tricks, they would have realised they had six spade tricks in their own hand and they could ruff two clubs in dummy. There was the A and surely the 10^th trick could come from clubs too, since South had both the queen and the jack. 

That may not be the case if they cashed A felling the queen. So, they hit on the idea of leading a low club towards the queen. This play was not terminal but proved South’s undoing:

 

East won the K and very soon after had the Q on the table. The 10 in dummy could have saved South as long as South played low. If East continued with a low heart, South could have played low again with West’s ace winning the trick. There would be only two heart losers along with the K.

Alas, South covered the Q with the king after which South had to lose three heart tricks and the contract. Yet, it was not the heart play which was really to blame. (East could have led Q from just Qx in which case it would have been correct for South to play the king.)

The fault was at trick 3 and a lack of planning. The best way to play the club suit is to play Q from the dummy North hand….and only play the ace if East plays the king. In that case, both the A and J would score tricks. If on the above lay-out, East did not cover, South would score Q and A separately. Had the Q lost to the K in the West hand, South would soon regain the lead and play A and J, discarding two hearts from dummy and would have scored 10 tricks even ignoring the heart suit.

An alternative route to 10 tricks would have been to play Q discarding a heart, planning to discard another heart loser on the J if West does not switch to hearts. However, that line, too, requires declarer to be in the dummy hand.

On the actual lay-out, there were good chances of an overtrick as long as the K is withheld on the first two rounds when declarer does eventually play that suit, or of course if West cashes the ace themselves. 

There would have been no stress had the second trump trick been one in the dummy hand. Oh, it has been said so many times before. So, just one more time! Plan out how you will play a hand at an early stage, trick 1 or in this case before the second round of trumps is played. Had that been done on the above deal, 10 tricks would have been a certainty.

 

Leading…

 

Yet again, the opposition have all the points and your job is to find a good lead, the right lead, the overtrick minimising lead, the contract-beating lead. Yes, all of them in one card! Can you?

2 was a standard Multi, with South showing 20-22 balanced and in answer to North’s 3 major suit enquiry, no 4 or 5-card major. 2 was not forcing, better hearts than spades.

Richard Solomon 

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