Spotting the Right Play

[OliverC]

Sometimes the right play is easy to spot, but sometimes it is more difficult. Take this hand, in which you are North. NS Game, Dealer East:


South (Dummy)
10863
A52
AK864
5


North (You)
KQJ975
10874
5
108


Bidding
East     South     West     North
No        1          2        2
3       3          5         No
No        5          X            All Pass


East leads the Ace of Clubs, to which all play small, and then switches to the Queen of Hearts. You take Dummy's Ace and West plays the King under the Ace. How do you plan the play?


Let's suppose you start with AK and another Diamond, discarding a Heart from hand (West plays the 9 and the Jack and East two small ones). Now a ruff brings the Queen from West and the 7 from East. A Club ruffed in Dummy and now the 10 of Spades (everyone plays small). A Diamond rufffed in hand brings a Club from West and the 10 from East.


What now?



South (Dummy)
86
52
6
-


North (You)
KQJ
108
-
-


You have to figure two things at this point: West probably started with a stiff King, definitely QJ9 and at least KQJxxx(x), and almost certainly Ax (It difficult to imagine East ducking the 10 , but West might well, in the hope that Partner has something and you misguess, or in case partner has the stiff King).


Can you see it yet? If West started with the stiff King of Hearts and Ax, we know they are out of Diamonds, so a Spade now will endplay West, who will only have Clubs left) to give us a ruff 'n' discard, and and crucial entry to Dummy to enjoy the  long Diamond and all of our Heart losers will disappear in the process like magic, one discarded on the Club that Dummy is about to ruff and one on the long Diamond.


Unfortunately Partner didn't spot this opportunity and exited with a Heart, so we were -500 and minus 11½ IMPs rather than plus the same IMP score for 5 !SX=.


I think this endplay isn't too hard to spot. West might unblock the King from Kx, but at trick 1 it's more likely that it's a singleton, especially when Declarer might hand 1098(x). The critical issue here, though, is the probable location of the Ace of Spades. If, as seems almost certain, West has the Ace, you might as well try the endplay. If West does turn up with a second Heart or East unaccountably does hold the Ace, then you've lost nothing.


One last thing: When you were ruffing Diamonds, did you preserve the 5 or the 7 in your hand, to give you an extra entry to Dummy (even if you end up not needing it)? That's just good practice, and when the only missing Spades are the Ace, 4 and 2, it can hardly cost you anything.

[brian_m]

I think this theme used to be in one of the cooked hands which regularly appeared in simultaneous events back in the days when I used to play in such things. It was something like this :-

Vul E-W, Dealer West
North

  A54
  A3
  752
  AKJ97



South
  K32
  42
  A43
  Q10842

West opens 4 , North doubles, South bids 5 , all pass.

Now the double may not be everybody's choice, but you're stuck with it. West opens with the  K, on which East drops the  5. You appear to have four inescapable losers in 5 . The answer, of course, is as per Oliver's theme, that you have to hope you can pull all of West's cards in the other three suits. So, grab the  A, pull trumps, play  A and    AK, and then hope to throw West in with the second round of  and to find West with 2=8=1=2 shape for the vulnerable 4 opener. West has only  left, so on the first one you discard a  from one hand and a  from the other, on the next  a second  from one hand and ruff in the other, and there you go, 5 made losing only two  .

Very lucky, of course, but if you have only one possible winning line, play for it!