|
|  J 9 6 4 2 |
|
|
 10 6 3 |
|
|
 9 6 5 3 |
|
|
 K |
|
| 10 8 5 |
|
7 |
| Q J 8 5 |
|
A 7 |
| J 7 4 2 |
|
A K 10 8 |
| J 5 |
|
A 10 9 8 7 2 |
|
A K Q 3 |
|
|
K 9 4 2 |
|
|
Q |
|
|
Q 6 4 3 |
|
I was sitting East and opened the bidding with a club, but with a no trump overcall and a transfer to spades, South wound up as declarer in 2 spades -- which was a good thing, since it was all he was destined to make. Opening lead was the queen of hearts, which I went up on and switched to diamonds. The queen, along with the no trump bid, made me think I was going to get a Q J doubleton, but of course, declarer ruffed the continuation, then drew trump in three rounds and led a club to the king. I won and now got around to returning a heart through the king. Declarer won, played the queen of clubs, sluffing a heart and claimed. Claimed the rest of the tricks, that is. The hand then looked like this:
|
| J 9 |
|
|
------ |
|
|
9 6 |
|
|
------ |
|
| ---- |
|
------ |
| J 8 |
|
------ |
| J 7 |
|
10 8 |
| ------ |
|
10 9 |
|
------ |
|
|
9 4 |
|
|
---- |
|
|
6 4 |
|
I sent the claim back. Had declarer proceeded to play out the remaining four tricks I probably would have forgotten about the bogus claim, and certainly wouldn't have presumed to speak to what was on declarer's mind as I now do. But after about 5 or ten seconds, declarer resubmitted the claim, evidently puzzled that his first try had been turned down.
I again sent it back, now typing in a note, to wit: "You've got two trump winners. We've got everything else." After all, we had the top two clubs, the top two diamonds, and a J 8 tenace in hearts over the 9 4. I don't know where on earth he was seeing winners beyond his trump, but then I know he wasn't seeing winners. He was seeing an absence of losers. After all, he's out of diamonds in the closed hand, isn't he? And there are no hearts in dummy, are there? And no clubs. But whatever his shortages, he has only two trump and no high cards in the side suits.
Now dummy came in with his comment: "Humor them, pd." I originally thought that might have been his way of telling his wrongheaded partner to get on with it. But since he could have said, "Why don'tcha just play it out," I began to get the feeling that he too thought they couldn't have diamond losers if South was out of diamonds -- or club or heart losers.
Well, of course the upshot was that declarer finally got around to playing the hand out, ruffing a heart, losing a diamond to me, sluffing a diamond when I led a club and then taking the last trick. Further, like hand one, declarer could easily have picked up the 10 tricks he was claiming if he'd had a good grasp of winners.
Notwithstanding a no trump bid, declarer has only 2 side-suit winners, one because the ace of hearts is onsides, the other because his partner offers the king of clubs that allows the queen to be a winner. But it's enough. If declarer wants 10 tricks, he's going to have to get 8 in spades, but the cards are right for that.
Trick four (after ruffing the ace of diamonds), lead a club to the king. Now, whatever the return, draw one round of trump, cash the king of hearts, queen of clubs, sluffing a heart, and have a good time: ruff a club, ruff a diamond, ruff a club, ruff a diamond. Now he wouldn't have any diamond losers, no. He would then have J 9 of trump in dummy sitting over West's 10 8.
But you've gotta get the winners, and not just claim them.
