As Declarer we often have to weigh up different possible lines of play, balancing risks against possible rewards, and taking into account the bidding and early play when assessing the relative likelyhood of a given line achieving the desired result.
This was quite an instructive hand in this respect, I felt:
EW Game, Dealer SouthYou are North:
North
AQJ3
AJ9652
Q83
-
BiddingSouth West North EastNo 1
1
1
No 1NT 2
All Pass
East leads the
4 against your 2
contract and Dummy puts down:
South (Dummy) 105
83
A10972
J1093
4 ledNorth AQJ3
AJ9652
Q83
-
How do you assess your chances and what is the best line of play?
Clearly West will have the majority of the outstanding hcp, the
4 is an obvious singleton, and the
King is probably on your
left with at least 4 others (otherwise East might have made a negative double). Going up with the
Ace at trick one is indicated, therefore, because the likelyhood of a Diamond ruff looms if you duck).
Having won the
Ace, how about taking the Spade finesse? Now we are into the territory of risk vs reward. This might be your
only chance to catch West with the
King, but against that you have to balance the possibility of the Spades being 6-1 and the likelyhood that the
King will actually be on your left. The last thing you want here when
East has the
King is to give Opps the chance to cross-ruff Diamonds and Spades. Indeed the likelyhood is that once you've drawn most or all of Opps' trumps, the
10 might even prove to be an additional
entry to Dummy.
Partner took the Spade finesse by running the
10. That lost to East's King but East switched to a small Club on which Dummy played low, West the Ace and Declarer ruffed. Now what?
The standout play at this point is Ace and another Heart. You've established 3 Spade winners in your hand and the main thrust of your line now
has to be to draw Opps' trumps as quickly as possible to deny them ruffs in Diamonds and possibly Spades.
Instead, Declarer started cashing Spades! This
cannot be right: If West is not ruffing Spades on the 2nd round, they will
surely ruff the 3rd round, and then EW will be off to the races: With the KQ10 of Hearts outstanding, they could easily get 4 cross-ruffs in, plus the
King to add to the Spade King.
West did, indeed, ruff the 3rd Spade (with the
4), cash the
King and led a 3rd Diamond, which East ruffed with the
7. Fortunately, East returned another Club rather than the killing Spade, which now gave Declarer another opportunity to draw trumps and we still came out with 8 tricks.
Cashing Spades (and even taking the
finesse, which was almost bound to fail) is a very high-risk strategy compared to playing 2 quick rounds of trumps. Even if the trumps turn out to be 4-1 (not impossible) you will have prevented the possibility of Diamond ruffs by East or Spade ruffs by West, depending on who has the long trumps. That is more likely to be West and you can use Spades as "trumps" against them.
