Another hand from my game with Eszter last night. I hope she will forgive me for detailing this hand, but the points illustrated are
really important: I've changed the positions to make the hand easy to "see":
You are South, EW Vulnerable, Dealer East:
North 
10
AJ972
K754
QJ7
South 974
K108543
8
A42
BiddingEast South West NorthNo 2
2
No
3
No 4
5
No No X All Pass
(In case you're wondering about North's initial Pass over 2
, I felt I had too many Hearts and too many hcp and didn't want to
push EW to a making game they might not bid otherwise. Once they
had bid 4
, I obviously had a very cheap sacrifice.)
The early play - Making a PlanWest cashed the Ace of Spades and switched to the Club 10, covered in Dummy and you take East's King with your Ace.
What's your plan?
.
.
.
That's the really crucial question, because you need to
have a plan. This contract is
at most -1 (losing 1 trick in each side suit) but you really need to try to make it, because some NS pairs might buy the contract in 4
, and some EW pairs might push on to 5
, which is probably going to be off with the K
onside.
Although the Clubs have started well for you, you have a losing club which needs to be discarded. The
only reasonable chance for that is to find the Ace of Diamonds onside. There is very little chance of finding West with 5 Diamonds (and East with Axx), which would allow you to ruff out the Ace, and there is similarly no chance of the 98 of Clubs disappearing into thin air.
So your plan should be a very simple one, A Heart to Dummy's Ace and a Heart back to hand (however the trumps are distributed - in practice East had both of them) and then lead a Diamond towards the King. West, holding the Ace of Diamonds, is powerless. They either let the King of Diamonds win, in which case your 3rd losing trick disappears, or they rise with the Ace and now the King of Diamonds takes care of your 3rd Club. If it turns out that East has the Ace of Diamonds, you've lost nothing, because the hand was unmakeable.
At the TableIt was clear at the table that Eszter
hadn't made any sort of plan. At trick 3 she ruffed a Spade, a
small Heart back to the King (West showing out) and another Spade ruffed with a
small Heart. This now left Dummy with the
AJ,
Kxxx,
Qx, and
no way to get off Dummy without conceding a cheap Diamond trick. Even ruffing her 3rd Spade with the
Jack would have been good enough, because now she can remove East's last trump with the Ace and cross back to hand in the trump suit to lead the Diamond.
The thing here was that Declarer can ruff her losing Spades
any time. There's absolutely no rush to do it. Even if the Hearts are 2-0, Dummy will always have 3 trumps left to cater for your 2 losing Spades. The
only issue on this hand is how to get rid of the 3rd Club in your hand before Opps can remove the Queen of Clubs in Dummy. There might be occasions when eliminating the Spades from both hands was important, but this clearly wasn't one of them.
5
X making would have been worth 8.2 IMPs. Because 4
wasn't making, 5
X -1 was worth -6 IMPs, a 14 IMP difference. Team Matches often turn on much smaller swings than that!
Make a plan! Concentrate on the essential features of the hand!
