AW023

CHILD'S PLAY

by Aleksander Wagner

So I'm playing in this big international tournament with my favourite partner thousand odd miles away from home, barely awake after a late night, and we feel quite lucky that our first two deals we have to play against these two friendly kids with innocent smiles on their teenage faces, together maybe 30 years of age.We say hello, they say hello, I (West) open 1S then nobody says a word until they stop in 3H with these hands:

Then my partner wakes up and doubles.
I lead the Ace of spades following with the King and the Queen. Imagine you are South. Do you see any chance of making the contract assuming of course that East has at least four trumps?

Our friendly teenager did! With lightning speed and a shy smile on his face he started to play, and very nearly made it. He immediately realized that there was a probable distribution that allowed him to take 9 tricks:


                   AKQJx                     xxx
                   10             N          QJxx
                   Qxxxx        W   E        Axx
                   xx             S          xxx

with singleton 10, Jack or Queen of hearts in the West hand.

Let's take a look at all the hands:

                                654
                                AK2
                                KJ43
                                K76
                   AKQJx                     xxx
                   10             N          QJxx
                   Qxxxx        W   E        Axx
                   xx             S          xxx

                                73
                                98765
                                8
                                AQ952

All South needs to do is to ruff the third spade and play the diamond 8 to the Jack. After any return he draws three high clubs and the diamond King, ruffs a diamond, draws only one high heart and all this in such an order that in the end he stays on the dummy having reached the following position:

                                -
                                K2
                                3
                                -
                                              -
                                  N           QJx
                                W   E         -
                                  S           -

                                -
                                98
                                -
                                9

Now he plays the 3 of diamonds from the dummy. Do I really need to spell it out? QJxx in trumps take only one trick! Quite ingenious. And quite close to the real distribution, but luckily for us and my partner in particular (mind you, without the double there was virtually no chance of our kid having played like this) the real distribution was somewhat different:

                                654
                                AK2
                                KJ43
                                K76
                   AKQJ82                    109
                   10             N          QJ43
                   Q1097        W   E        A652
                   84             S          J103

                                73
                                98765
                                8
                                AQ952

Even now the disaster was close: if on the third spade my partner discarded a diamond instead of a club, South would still have made the contract! Of course if I was awake and didn't lead my three high spades but switched to something else (like trumps, the only logical switch) after the Ace of spades, South wouldn't have had a chance. But then I wouldn't have a story , would I?

All this happened long time ago, at least one of the kids grew up to be one of the leading Polish players, I described this deal (and several others) in our Bridge magazine more than 15 years ago and still feel very sentimental about it. It reminds me of another youngster: early sixties, the same game, the same scenery, but someone else on the receiving end...