Monday 13 October 2014

Two hard defences in one

Love all
Dealer South
  • K6
  • none
  • AJ53
  • A865432
  • AQ10983
  • AJ107
  • 10
  • K7
N
W
E
S
  • J5
  • K54
  • Q9762
  • J109
  • 742
  • Q98632
  • K84
  • Q
West
North
East
South
Rob
Jonathan
John
Paul
-
-
-
2Multi
2
3
Pass
Pass
3
All pass

This hand comes from the very friendly annual 'varsity alumni match. But it wasn't entirely out of amity that we got the defence wrong. Ace of clubs lead, club ruff, heart ruff, ace of diamonds, diamond to the queen, king and ruff, and now declarer had no choice but to drop the king of spades. Of course we gave suit preference with our choice of club and heart spot cards, but I failed to signal for the diamond underlead which would have put me in to give a second heart ruff. (And I could have given declarer a chance to go wrong by not covering the queen of diamonds.)

It doesn't help for North to signal at trick two for a diamond return - ace of diamonds, club ruffed to kill the discard, but declarer can simply play ace and another spade and South will be squeezed in the reds. So South has to work out when returning a heart that the best chance is to play North for ace of diamonds and a heart void. Is that possible?

At the time I thought 3NT was a lucky make, but the hand records say not. Can you see the winning defence?

Click here to show (or hide) the answer

No comments:

Post a Comment