King-Jack Guess

N-S Game
Dealer North

• K853
• A10873
• A105
• 4

• A96
• KJ9
• KQJ74
• Q8

N

W

E

S

• J1074
• 4
• 9832
• A753

• Q2
• Q652
• 6
• KJ10962

West

North

East

South

 

Paul

 

Jonathan

-

1

Pass

2NT^raise

Pass

3^{Natural try}

Pass

3NT^accepting

Pass

4

All pass

Playing imps, we each took a liking to our hand, and arrived in a thin game. East led the jack of spades, what's your line?  You're going to have to make an early club play, and you'll probably need to get it right.

Click here to show (or hide) the answer

There's a slight inference that East is more likely to have the ace of clubs, in that West seems to have the ace of spades and at least some of the diamond honours, so there are some hands with the ace of clubs where he would at least have thought about bidding.  But that's pretty thin.  More persuasive is that the subsequent play may well be easier if you guess correctly to play the king than if you guess correctly to play the jack.

Consider for example the actual layout (I can't help being swayed by a sample of one). Win the first trick with the king of spades, play a club to the king, ruff a club, ace of diamonds, diamond ruff, and so on to take the first eight tricks, then exit in spades, coming down to two hearts and two spades in hand, two hearts and two clubs in dummy.  West will lead a heart, and you will have to work out whether to run it or rise with the ace and try to make the queen en passant.  But you should have a pretty good count on the hand, plus perhaps some help from the tempo, so that won't be very hard.

On the other hand, swap the east-west club honours, and play a club to the jack and ace.  West cashes the ace of spades and switches to the king of diamonds.  You win, ruff a diamond, cash the king of clubs pitching a spade, ruff a club, ruff a diamond, ruff a club, and...I hope you've kept the three of hearts or you've gone off.  This is the position:

• 8
• A103
• none
• none

• none
• KJ9
• Q
• none

N

W

E

S

• 107
• 4
• 9
• none

• none
• Q6
• none
• 109

To make the contract from here, needing three more tricks, you ruff a spade high in dummy.  West overruffs and leads the queen of diamonds, which you ruff low and win in dummy for a trump coup.  Or if West discards, you lead whatever you like from dummy, and when West splits you play the three of hearts.

Which is elegant, but you need to work out early enough that you should keep the three of hearts.   And what if East has got the singleton jack or king of hearts?  It's better to play the easy line of trying to win the king of clubs at trick two.  And you don't need to see this end position, as I didn't, to work that out.