OCP really delivered the goods on this hand I played with Eszter yesterday:
EW Game, Dealer NorthYou are South, with:
South K863
93
J1084
A62
Bidding (Opps silent)
North South1
1NT
3
??
Knowing Partner probably has
AQxxx, and
KQxxx makes it very easy to visualise 10 tricks wherever their red suit distribution was, so I had no problem bidding 4
even though we had to be well sub-minimum.
Eszter didn't quite have that hand, and that gave rise to an interesting issue in the play:
South (Dummy) K863
93
J1084
A62
5 ledNorth A9542
J2
A
KQ943
East led the
5. West took the
AK and switched to the
Jack. How should you play? At first sight it makes little difference. If the Spades are 2-2 you're never losing a Spade trick as long as you play for the drop. Similarly, if the
Jack is a singleton, you are always losing 1 Spade trick, because East will have
Q10x. What if West started with QJx or J10x, however, particularly the latter? If you win trick 3 in
Dummy after East plays their singleton Queen, you now have a tenace of
A9 sat over West's
107, but if you win this trick in hand, you must lose a trick to the
10.
For that reason, it's better to let this one run to Dummy and take the finesse on the way back if East "overtakes" Partner's Jack with the Queen