This was an interesting play hand I played with Paula earlier today:
NS Game, Dealer NorthYou are South. Partner passes, East opens 1
, you bid 1NT (16-18) and everyone passes. West leads the
King and Dummy goes down:
North (Dummy) J106
106
J9854
K76
King ledSouth K53
A832
AK2
Q109
You duck the Heart King and the Queen which follows it, but take the Jack at trick 3 when East shows out, discarding a small Diamond (and I discarded a small Diamond from Dummy). How do you plan the play from here?
The question uppermost in my mind was "Did East start with 5 Diamonds or only 4?". I decided I was going to play East for 5 Diamonds and West for a void. With the
KQJ in the West hand the position of the!S AQ,
Q and
Ace was not in doubt, but there was just room for West to have the
Jack.
If East started with only 4 Diamonds, I can afford to play Ace, King and another Diamond now, because that clears the Diamond suit and East is endplayed to let me into Dummy. That line doesn't work well when East started with 5 Diamonds, however.
At trick 4, therefore, I led the
10, hoping to encourage a cover by West. West duly obliged and Dummy's King was taken by East's Ace. East went passive now and returned a Club which I won. The position was now:
North (Dummy)
J106
-
J985
6
South
K53
8
AK2
Q
I was provisionally placing East with
AQx,
xx,
Q10xxx,
Axx, so I tried exiting with the
King. East could have caused me some problems by
ducking this trick (but I would be okay as long as I cashed my last Club winner before continuing the Spades. They took the Spade Ace, however, and played a 3rd Club, won in hand.
4 tricks to date so I need to find another 3. I again played a Spade to Dummy and the 10 was allowed to hold. Now the Jack of Diamonds forces a cover from East (and West played one, so AK and a 3rd Diamond would have been better as it turns out). I won and exited with a Spade. East could cash a 4th Spade, but now had to lead away from
10x to give me a 7th trick.
All this brain-ache only netted me the princely amount of ½ an IMP (mainly because some lunatic in the West seat had contrived to go -4 in 4
XX), but it was a fun hand to try to work out.