I have two pet hates when it comes to common (sharp) practice on BBO. The first is people who
repeatedly click on a bid for an explanation (5 or 6 times), even when a full explanation has already been given, to convey to Partner that you have that suit or want that suit led. The other one is long pregnant pauses over artificial bids to convey much the same thing.
I never tend to take people to task about it, but it's cheating, pure and simple. The second of these came up on this hand, but Opps both lacked the wit to take advantage of it:
You are North, NS Game, holding:
North K83
J82
KJ10
KQ102
You open 1NT, Partner bids 2
and West goes into the tank for about 3 minutes before eventually passing. You bid 2
and that is passed out. East leads (what a surprise!) the King of Hearts, and Partner puts the following Dummy down
North (Dummy) QJ976
63
2
J7643
King led.
North K83
J82
KJ10
KQ102
Actually I've no place to criticise East here, because the Ace or King of Hearts is a perfectly normal and obvious lead. East took the AK of Hearts and played a small Heart at trick 3. What's our plan?
- Tricks: We have oodles of tricks in the Black suits
- Losers:There are 5 obvious and fairly inescapable losers: 2 Hearts and the other 3 Aces.
- Dangers: The main danger to this contract is clearly a Club ruff or maybe even 2 Club ruffs. A 4-1 trump split mnay also be a little inconvenient.
- Plan:Clearly we want to draw trumps as quickly as possible so that we can then enjoy the Clubs.
I have to say Eszter played this hand
very well. At trick 3, instead of ruffing, she discarded Dummy's Jack of Diamonds. This is an
expert play for three reasons: Firstly she has to lose the Diamond
anyway and this play is a sort of loser-on-loser, because she can ruff any subsequently Heart leads in
her hand. Secondly, it's now much more difficult for Opps to attack the Diamonds, knowing that Dummy will be in a position to ruff. Lastly, it cuts the communication between the two defending hands, so that it's
much more difficult for Opps to get 2 Club ruffs.
The downside of this is that it makes a Club switch much more likely. In fact, West had a singleton Club (and East Axx), but Eszter's play also somehow persuaded West that it would now be a good idea to force Dummy, and that the Diamonds were wide open, so At trick 4 West led the Ace of Diamonds. Eszter ruffed in Dummy and led the Queen of Spades, which held, and now a small Spade to her King, which also held, West, who had started with
A52,
Q10976,
AQ94,
was now stranded with their Ace of Spades, but no means to cash it. Eszter played on Clubs. East took their Ace immediately, and switched to a Diamond, but Eszter could simply play Minor suit winners and let West take their Ace of trumps when they liked.
2
making was an outright top worth 7 IMPs, because 4
is ice cold for EW. Even 2
going 1 off would have been worth 2½ IMPs, as a result. 2
-2 would have been pretty much the par score, even though nobody actually had that result.
The key play here, potentially, was discarding the 2
from Dummy on the 3rd Heart. In practice, Eat only entry outside Hearts was the Ace of Clubs, so once they had cashed the AK
, there was never any chance for the defence to gain 2 Club ruffs. Cutting the communication between the defending hands is quite often a key play, perhaps by holding up a winner, or maybe even holding up a losing Kxx caught between QJ10x and Axx. If East had held the
Ax, nothing can prevent two Club ruffs if Opps are alert to it, but Eszter's play gave herself maximum chance of escaping with -1 if a Club ruff was available to EW, at no cost to her if the Clubs were 2-2.