This was a poor Board for Eszter and me. We lost out partly in the bidding and even more in the play:
You are North, the Dealer, at Love All:
North 4
AK86
KQ4
AQ842
BiddingNorth East South West1
2
No
(1) 3NT
??
(1) 0-7 any shape
First question is what do you do here? East presumably has in the region of 5-9 hcp for their 2
overcall, which gives West a
maximum of about a 17-count, and that's if Partner has a yarborough and East only a 5-count, so opposite a weak jump overcall, 3NT definitely comes into the region of speculative, with support for Spades that falls short of "good", since otherwise they'd likely be bidding 4
rather than 3NT. 6 Spades and the
Ace falls well short of 9 tricks, though, so I think you have three choices: Pass, Double or 4
.
(1) 4
is an outside choice, but I think it's a poor third, myself, because (1) You don't know your side even has the balance of the points and (2) You have no idea whether Partner has some Clubs or not, but if they're weak, it's unlikely they're going to disturb 4
, because anything else might be worse.
(2) Double would, I think, be my second choice. It's not ideal, because it's essentially a Penalty double which might backfire, because although Opps probably only have 7 tricks on top (if Partner has nothing), you're likely to be endplayed on the optning lead and vulnerable to being endplayed again later on.
(3) Pass would be my
first choice. Now if Partner has nothing they'll presumably Pass and hope 3NT is going off, but if they have some values
they will probably double for penalties, especially when they have a Spade stop (which is entirely possible given the bidding).
As it happens, 3NTX is going for a telephone number. On best defence, Declarer is probably only getting 4 tricks (so +1100). Even on mediocre defence it's going for -800 and -500 for really awful defence is still going to net you a better score than any game NS might be able to make.
Inevitably (LOL) North decided to compete with 4
and everyone passed. East led the
9 and Dummy went down:
South (Dummy) A853
10753
106
1075
9 ledNorth 4
AK86
KQ4
AQ842
No use crying over split milk, because you can see immediately that 3NTX was a far better spot, and even 4
might have had chances rather than 4
.
You cover the
9 with Dummy's 10, West plays the Jack and you win. You cross to Dummy's Ace of Spades (West plays the 10) and lead the
10. West covers with the Jack and you insert the Queen which wins, East following low. Now the
King is taken by West's Ace, West switches to the
Queen which you ruff. Now you cash the
Queen and ruff a Diamond in Dummy. East plays the
Jack on the third round.
Now what? Your play to this point has been fairly automatic and inevitable, but how do you view the hand from here? Clearly, East started with
KJxxxx and
Jxx. The 9
lead might have been a singleton or a doubleton. If it was a singleton, then they must have started with
9xx and if it was a Doubleton, then they started with two small Clubs. There are no other possibilities. As for West, they're known to have started with
Q10,
Axxxx, and at least
KJ and 3 or 4 Hearts.
What else do we know? Well the main thing is that the lead (not to mention the bidding) pretty much marked West with
QJx(x). The standout play at this point, therefore, is to play a Heart to your
8. This will win when East started with 2 Hearts and 2 Clubs, and East will ruff if his Opening lead was a singleton, but he'll be ruffing with a
natural trump trick if that's the case, because he'll have started with
9xx.
If the
8 wins, now you can cash the Club Ace and exit with a Heart. West can win and take their
King, but that is all - 11 tricks easy. Even playing a Club to your Ace at this point and then exiting with Ace and another Heart still assures you of 10 tricks. What you
cannot afford to do is to play a Heart to your Ace and then exit with a Heart, because now you are allowing West to win and get a trump promotion by leading a 4th round of Diamonds for Partner to ruff with his 9.
-50 rather than +1100 is a
big drop