Another good hand on counting:
Love All, Dealer WestSouth (Dummy) 7
A874
A854
J654
10 led
South AQ1082
KJ96
Q10
K8
BiddingWest North East South1NT 2
(1) No 3
(2)No 4
All Pass
(1) Majors
(2) Pre-emptive
I think Eszter and I were on the same wavelength here: With a genuine invitation I can bid a
slow 3
, so my
fast one is more pre-emptive than anything else, but North has values to spare.
On the lead of the
10, West played low and your King wins the first trick. How do you plan the play? The bidding has told you where all the high cards are. If West's 1NT is 15-17, then there is no room for East to have more than a single Jack, so the location of the
King,
Queen,
King and the
AQ should
not be in doubt. How, therefore, should you play the hand?
Eszter played a Heart to Dummy's Ace and another Heart back, capturing West's Queen on the second Heart. Now the
Ace and a Spade ruff allowed her to lead a Diamond towards her Queen. West took their King, cashed the
Ace and tried to cash the Queen, but Eszter was in control: She ruffed, cashed the
Queen, ruffed another Spade, cashed the
Ace and the
Jack was her 10th trick.
Good enough, and few NS Pairs bid this game, so 10 tricks was a decent result. At the end, though, Easter left the
Jack alone at trick 12, when actually she could have cashed it and discarded the
Queen for an 11th trick (East had the last Heart and a Club left). There are a number of decent lines for 11 tricks here, mostly based on taking the
finesse instead of a second round of Hearts.
(In fact,
12 tricks can be made on this hand, based on the bidding, our count of the hand, and a little luck: A
to the Ace at trick 2, then the
Spade finesse and a Spade ruff without cashing the Ace. Now a small
Club off the table almost endplays West and leaves them with no decent option except exiting with the
Queen. Now another
ruff and a Club ruffs out West's Ace and Declarer can draw East's last trump, cash all the Spades and enjoy Dummy's
Ace and
Jack for the last two tricks.)
Opportunities for endplays (and squeezes) abound when you know for a fact that one defender holds everything, as here. In such circumstances it's always worth trying to come up with a line of play that puts such a defender under as much pressure as possible and takes advantage of their predicament.