Counting & Watching Entries
|
 A Q 8 7 |
|
 A J 7 4 3 |
|
 ------ |
|  K 7 4 3 |
| J 9 5 | |
4 |
| K 10 9 | |
Q 6 5 2 |
|
| K 10 8 3 | | J 9 7 6 5 2 |
| J 10 8 | |
Q 6 |
|
K 10 6 3 2 |
|
|
8 |
|
|
A Q 4 |
Contract: 6 spades |
|
A 9 5 2 |
Opening lead: J of clubs |
How many winners do we count? We'll assume that clubs are splitting 3-2 for the nonce (since we can't make slam without that split). That would give us 3 club winners, a diamond, a heart and 5 spades for ten. We might ruff two diamonds in dummy (the short hand), taking care not to use either of our top honors, which we'll need for drawing trump. By golly, that would seem to work, huh?
Take the opening lead in the closed hand, ruff a diamond, ace of hearts and ruff a heart (we have no other feasible re-entry), ruff another diamond, cash the A, Q of spades, ruff another heart, draw the last trump with the K and . . . wait! Something's wrong. We have three club winners only after losing a club. But we have no more trump and can't afford to lose the lead!
Well, let's duck the opening club lead. And West shifts to a heart! Let's see how that plays out. Ruff a heart, ruff a diamond, come to the A of clubs, ruff a diamond, cash the A Q of spades, ruff a heart, cash the last trump, drawing West's J and now with only one club out, declarer goes to the K of clubs in dummy and cashes the 7. That'll work. We do hafta risk a second round ruff of a club on a 4-1 split, but it's not there. And we hafta ruff the third round of hearts and run a bit of a risk there.
Or let's say West shifts to a club at trick two. Win in the closed hand, ruff a diamond, Ace of hearts, ruff a heart, ruff a diamond, cash the A Q of trump, ruff a heart (that's the third round), cash the K of trump, drawing the last trump from West, and now the K of clubs draws the defense's last club and you're golden.
That wasn't the first line that drew my attention, I confess. That was to play the hand as a dummy reversal, ruffing out hearts to establish the 5th on a 4-3 split. Good thing I wasn't playing the hand, because that won't work. You've gotta ruff out the fourth round of hearts on that line, and declarer needs one higher trump, the J instead of the 10 for a fourth round ruff that West cannot overruff. [Technically, as the cards lie, that would work if declarer read the cards as they are: A of hearts, ruff a heart with the 2, 3 to the A Q 8 7, winning with the 7 if West goes low. So let's say West splits his J 9. Okay, go up with the Q, ruff a heart with the 10, 6 to the A 8 7, winning as cheaply as possible, ruff a heart with the K, cash the A of diamonds, sluffing a club, ruff a diamond, draw West's last trump. Dummy now has a good heart, the last one out, and declarer can cash that along with two clubs, conceding a club at the end. But that isn't the way we play bridge. And that's a tough line to take, particularly when you can ruff two diamonds and need only ruff the third round of hearts for entry purposes. But you've gotta duck the first round of clubs, or you're in trouble.