Comedy of Errors

[OliverC]

I had a chuckle on this hand, because it's not like me to forget about an outstanding Ace of trumps, but I was "rescued" by Opps in the end.

Game All, Dealer South

North (Dummy)
  42
  97543
  2
  AQ842

South
  AK
  862
  AQ1093
  1097

Bidding
South     West    North     East
1NT         No        2         No
2          All Pass

West leads the 6. West contributes the Jack and you win in hand. How do you plan the play?

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Missing the top 5 Heart honours, this hand has the potential to go horribly wrong. You've only got 3 entries to hand, one of which has just been used up. Since you are going to have to tackle the Clubs at some point, I decided not to lose a tempo by using this occasion to draw trumps, and ran the 10 at trick 2. Unexpectedly, this held the trick (both Opps playing low), which was great, but didn't bode very well for the Club distribution, so I switched to a trump at trick 3, West contributing the 10 and East the Queen, which was encouraging. East returned a Spade, won in hand, and another round of Hearts followed (West played the Jack and East the King). East now obligingly  returned a 3rd Spade, which suggested to me that West had the Ace of Hearts.

I ought (on general principles) to ruff this trick in hand and discard a Club from Dummy. That extra unlooked-for entry to my hand would allow me to run the 9 (which West would now presumably cover with the Jack), but I'd still have the Ace as an entry to hand to take a finesse against West's King. Originally I was quite content to lose one Club trick, but taking the low finesse by running the 10 first is a 75% line that loses only 1 Club trick whenever West has either the King or the Jack. Now, however, I can win all of the Clubs and come out smelling of roses with 2 overtricks.

Having convinced myself that West held the Ace and KJxx, however, I now had a complete brain fart and ruffed the 3rd Spade in Dummy rather than in my hand. Moreover, when I exited with a Heart, it was East who won the trick and switched to a Diamond. I took my Ace, but realised, to my chagrin, that I would only make 9 tricks rather than 10, because when I led the 9 of Clubs, West could cover and I had no way back to my hand and would have to give them one Club trick.

West rescued me, however, by not covering the 9 and so my 10 tricks on a combined 19-count missing all 5 top honours in trumps duly came in. Kind Opps!!!! This was surprisingly good, since the KJx were offside in the West hand and Opps have an easy 3 part-score on. Only one other pair were allowed to play in a Heart part-score and the only other plus scores for NS were from EW Pairs who got too high and went off in Spade contracts.