Some lines of play are completely illogical and just cannot possible gain under
any circumstances. In many ways it comes down to this: Make a provisional plan based on where you think cards
might be. Sometimes there is absolutely no evidence on which to base this and you have no real clue, but still, make an assumption and stick to it! Take this hand:
Love All, Dealer WestYou are North, holding:
North A64
AKJ
A8762
72
Bidding (Opps silent)
1
- 1
1NT - 2
2
- All Pass
East leads the
9 against your contract:
South (Dummy) 952
106532
KJ5
Q5
9 ledNorth A64
AKJ
A8762
72
That's a very friendly lead for you and you're already ahead of the game: West plays the
Queen and you draw trumps in a further 2 rounds, East discarding a small Club on the 3rd round.
(1) Can you make any assumptions about the probable distribution of the outstanding cards?
(2) What's your plan?
You can't really make any firm assumptions, but it seems likely that East doesn't have any shortages, as such, because they led trumps rather than trying to get a ruff (so 4 Diamonds with West is unlikely) and probably East doesn't have another obvious or attractive lead (eg:
KQJx or
AKxx). There are 9 Clubs outstanding and East's discard of a small Club
might indicate that they have 5 Clubs, but without the AK. That's about as far as you can go, though, because any conclusions you make at this stage are more speculation than anything else.
So far as a plan goes, the clear-cut winning line is to establish the
Diamonds. You cannot possibly escape 2 losers in the black suits and might lose a Diamond as well, but hopefully you can come out with at least 10 tricks.
How to tackle the Diamonds, then? There are three likely candidates:
- Ace, and then finesse the Jack (Playing East for Qxx(x) or 109xx
- Ace and then a Diamond to the King (Playing West for Qx)
- Diamond to the King (catering for Q stiff with West) and then run the Jack
- Small Diamond to the Jack (Playing for any 3-2 split, and hoping for Q with East)
Any of those are respectable lines of play, but
one of them is head and shoulders above the rest. The problem with (1) and (2) is that you've removed an entry from your hand
solely in or der to guard against the possibility of losing to the singleton Queen in the West hand, which is a possibility, obviously, but a very low probability one. Moreover, if you adopt (1) and the finesse loses, you've
blocked the Diamonds, and a Spade switch by West will guarantee that you probably only make 8 tricks on the hand.
(3) gets you 4 tricks on any 3-2 split, but it's catering for a
tiny probability and is a line that can
never obtain 5 Diamond tricks unless East has
exactly 109.
Playing for any 3-2 split is nearly a 68% chance. (4) keeps communications between the hands open, guarantees 4 Diamond tricks on
any 3-2 split and gets 5 Diamond tricks any time East has
Qx or
Qxx.
What Declarer did here was to find a 5th way of attacking the Diamonds that was somewhat illogical and which couldn't
gain under
any circumstances. They played a small Diamond to the King, led the
Jack (ie: Option 3), and when West played the 10 under the Jack, went up with the Ace. A small Diamond back at least caters for
Qx with either opponent.
As I said, 8 tricks here was never in doubt once the Hearts come in for no losers, but once East plays a
small Diamond on the first round, there's no point in playing for (3) above.