What Didn't Go Wrong?
|
 Q J |
|
 A Q 9 |
|
 7 6 5 4 3 |
|
 9 7 3 |
| 5 |
|
10 9 6 2 |
| K 10 8 4 3 2 |
|
6 5 |
| A 8 2 |
|
K Q J 10 9 |
| A K 5 |
|
Q 4 |
|
A K 8 7 4 3 |
|
|
J 7 |
|
|
------ |
|
|
J 10 8 6 2 |
Vul: No one |
| West | North | East | South |
| 1 |
Pass |
1 |
Pass |
| 2 |
Pass |
Pass |
3 |
| 3 |
Pass | Pass |
3 |
|
| Pass |
4 |
Pass |
Pass |
| Dbl |
All |
pass |
| West | North | East | South |
| 1 |
Pass |
1 |
Pass |
| 2 |
Pass |
Pass |
2 |
| Pass |
3 |
Pass (!) |
3 |
|
| All |
pass |
What didn't go wrong on this hand? An interesting hand, in no small part because of what OKBridge players did with it, as is often the case. The hand was played at the 3 level or higher in every denomination but diamonds, which interestingly -- ironically? tellingly? -- offer one of the safest 3 level contracts of them all. Indeed, for a few hours, I thought only diamonds would withstand the onslaught of first-rate defense at that level -- though not in the direction of the only diamond bidder above! Later I saw how 3 spades could be made. That contract would require just a little greater care than three diamonds, however, and a risk of going two off. Spades made everywhere from 7 tricks to 11, a fair spread when there is only one finessing position on the hand, and that through the two-time bidder of the suit.
Well, here's what went wrong:
- The most serious, both in terms of damage to declarer's score and in the obviousness of being ill-advised was the recurrent lead of a diamond from dummy to be ruffed. Now diamond leads are just what will hurt declarer the most, and you're only picking up spade winners you've always got coming. A spade declarer must take the first half of a heart hook immediately upon getting a diamond lead. After all, you don't need to lead toward the Q J of spades, but you do need to lead toward the top hearts. If he doesn't take the heart hook immediately, he's going to be an entry short for making a double finesse out of the hearts and will be held to 8 tricks on good defense.
- The most obvious and surprising of errors lay with the repeated refusal to take the heart finesse, even though West had bid the suit twice! One declarer did take a heart hook with the uncovered jack. Had it been covered, one could understand reluctance to finesse the 9 on the second round and possibly lose the ace altogether. But this declarer faced A Q of hearts on the second round and went up with the ace!
- Another serious error lay in neglecting to draw trump and giving the opposition (in a club contract) an opportunity for an uppercut (on the third round of hearts) and the defeat of 4 clubs. See discussion of that play here. However, in truth, this lay in conjunction with a diamond lead to be ruffed in the long hand.
- Here's how a declarer held himself to 7 tricks in spades, though he has 6 clear spade winners and a heart finesse past the two-time heart bidder: club ace opening lead, shift to ace of diamonds, ruffed by declarer, who now went to the queen of spades. But you don't need to lead toward those honors. Anyway, after cashing dummy's spade honors, a club was led, willy-nilly won by RHO, and another diamond brought declarer to A K tight in spades while RHO still had two trump and LHO had the king of clubs.
- When he cashed his top spades, he still might have picked up two heart tricks, but though he was out of trump and wide open in diamonds when he loses the lead, and has no quick access to his clubs when he knocks out the king, that was just what he did, leading a club to "establish" the two long clubs to which he had no access until the opponents lead a heart. The defense now ran three more diamond tricks, and surrendered the last trick to the ace of hearts.
- Here's how a defender allowed another declarer to make eleven tricks on the same hand: He cashed the A K of clubs, dropping his partner's queen, of course, and shifted! He could at least have given his partner a club ruff, but chose not to. Of course declarer now has an easy time of cashing the Q J of spades in dummy, ruffing a diamond, finish drawing trump, run clubs and take a simple heart finesse.
I just want to say a few words about the play of the hand. Getting out your trump is probably the earliest rule neophytes have drummed into them, or certainly one of the earliest. With a little more sophistication, we learn that there can be a number of reasons for not drawing trump right away. True enough. But that doesn't mean the early advocates of getting out the trump were wrong. Only that they hadn't gotten around to pointing out the need for flexibility.
Getting out the opponents' trump should still be a number one priority in trump contracts unless you have a positive reason for not doing so. We look for "fits", for at least 8 pieces in a trump suit for a couple of reasons. One is that this long-card holding will provide winners in itself, sometimes the great majority, and the second is so that we can control a run on other suits so as to establish our own side-suit winners.
Now, there are frequent hands where you'll want to get a ruff in the short hand, and not so frequent hands where you'll even want to get several ruffs in the long hand, conceding trump length to the opposition. I've written a few of them up. But here, there is nothing that would warrant shorting the long-card holding. Ruffing a diamond here at trick two gives you no more a winner than later playing your fifth club and sluffing a diamond. This may not be true on other holdings: on a 5-1 suit, you may want to ruff the second round in hopes of setting up a long card on 4-3 distribution, and then there is a difference between ruffing the second round, and sluffing on a trump lead. But here, there is no hope of ruffing out diamonds and then using the fifth. Further, a glance at the hands tells you the closed hand is the master. You want to get out trump and then cash out that powerful spade suit. So . . Get Outcher Trump!
You've got the long cards. If you've got a bad split against you, you probably can't make, missing the top three trump, but you don't solve anything by putting off the bad news. And here, there wasn't even any bad news! There's an old saw in bridge that goes to the effect that your play should be consistent with your bidding. If you bid 4 clubs, then you play as if your bidding has been sound and the cards are such that you can make. Until you have evidence to the contrary, of course.
So there's absolutely no reason for leading a diamond at trick two. You're just cashing out a trick early (the fifth club) that you're going to get eventually, anyway, and which might be an entry to the long spades and might be a control against the run of the diamonds. Declarer might have led a trump with his 8-card holding at trick two, or he might have led a spade, as mentioned above, since he has to unblock the suit anyway and he can hope he gets a trump from the long holding, which he would have.
Nothing else makes sense. But declarer did have the usual solution to his misplay: he blamed his partner! "I wish you wouldn't have corrected to four clubs," he told his partner, though though she had more clubs than spades and the three spade bid was certainly ambiguous and though four clubs doubled promised a far better score if he'd played it right. "Why do I always get partners who screw up my brilliant plans?" he might as well have said.
As for finessing, I'll keep the discussion short here by referring the reader to another page, to wit: Finessing.