A nice trump coup

[OliverC]

This was a nice hand Eszter and I played today. I nearly got this one 100% right, but was distracted by Naomi towards the end and lost track of what I was trying to achieve. Even so, it was a good result:

EW Game, Dealer South

North (Dummy)
  AQ108
  1043
  8
  A6432

King led

South
  J2
  AQ7652
  AJ106
  10

Bidding
South     West     North     East
1          2        2NT(1)    No
3 (2)     No         3 (3)    No
4          No         No           X
All Pass

Right fro the start I was anticipating a bad trump split with East holding at least 3 (just from the bidding). West led the King of Clubs, which I won in Dummy with the Ace (East played the Jack) and led a Diamond to my Ace and ruffed a Diamond in Dummy (both Opps following). A Club from Dummy gave East pause and they eventually discarded a Diamond. I ruffed in hand and ruffed a second Diamond with Dummy's 4. On this trick West played the King and East the 9. Another Club from Dummy followed and East now discarded the Queen, so my 10 was now good.

So the position was now as follows, with the lead in my hand:

North (Dummy)
  AQ108
  10
  -
  64

South
  J2
  AQ76
  10
  -

East was known to have started with 5-card Diamonds and a singleton Club, and West with 6-card Clubs and 3-card Diamonds. If East held the KJ9( 8 ), it seemed likely that West held the King. I don't need any discards on the Spades, however, but what I do need is the entries to Dummy. At trick 7, therefore, I led the Jack and overtook with Dummy's Queen. This loses nothing if the finesse is failing, as I've pointed out, because East must have at least 3 Spades and I don't need any discards on the Spades anyway. The Queen held, however and I now ran the 10. Once East followed with the 8 I was fairly confident (he'd definitely have covered with  KJ98) and, sure enough, the 10 brought the 9 from West.

Now West was known to have started with exactly Kxx, x, Kxx, KQxxxx and East with xxxx, KJx, Qxxxx, J. In preparation for the trump coup I now led a 4th Club, on which East discarded a Spade and which I ruffed with my 7. It was at this point that Naomi asked me something and I got distracted, because I forgot to take the marked Spade finesse when crossing back to Dummy, which would have allowed me to cash the Ace, discarding my 10, and then lead a black card through East's KJ, up towards my AQ, which would have been a very satisfying 3 doubled overtricks. As it was I had to be content with +790.

The thing with trump coups is that you need to reduce the number of your trumps so that you have no more than RHO, and keep your entries to Partner's hand so that you can lead a plain card from partner's hand at the pivotal trick (normally trick 12). No question here that East could have done better (by covering the 10), but he wasn't to know Partner had the 9 or that I was intending the trump coup all along if the King was onside.

[brian_m]

I vaguely remember someone putting up a trick hand in one of those pre-dealt simultaneous events many years ago, the whole point of the hand was if you got to the fairly obvious grand slam, you were likely to get a lead in a suit where dummy held exactly AKQJ and you were void, but the point of the hand was that you had to count your entries at trick 1 - you had to ruff the opening lead (or you could discard a high card from your own hand) in order to pull off the trump coup. Throw a small card from your hand on dummy's winner, and you were sunk, you couldn't pick up the trumps without losing a trick.

I can't remember who it was who set the hand, but Oliver for one will remember the sort of event I'm talking about. Was it the Epson Pairs? I know there was some big name company (at least, big name in those days!) that was sponsoring it.

[OliverC]

I've seen a few variations on that theme over the years, mostly in books on Declarer play. Spotting the possibility at trick one at the table is really hard . It's almost easier when you consider the hand in a book, because you know there must be some trick to the hand.

By comparison, this one was relatively easy to diagnose, given the bidding.