Tricky Splits

[OliverC]

This was an interesting problem hand;

NS Game, Dealer East

Bidding
East     South     West     North
3       No           No         X
No        4          All Pass

North (Dummy)
K8
QJ92
AJ96
AQ7

6 led

South
Q743
K1076
K3
J92

This looks like a reasonable contract. Possibly 3NT would be safer since it appears that West is void in Spades and it looks like 3 X would be well down, so you have to make sure you make this contract. How do you plan the play?

The initial problem is whether or not to take the Club finesse. If it loses, you will get the Ace of Spades and a ruff for sure, and still have the Ace to lose. On the other hand you're highly likely to run into a bad trump split on this hand, so maybe you have to gamble on West having the King at this stage.

That was the decision I made and I was very glad to see my nine win the trick (East played the 5). My pleasure didn't last very long, though, because a Heart to Dummy's Jack saw East discard the 6. Oooops! Now what?

Clearly East isn't going to be ruffing anything and West must have 8 cards distributed between the Minors, so my initial aim is to establish exactly what the distribution of the Minor suits is. I crossed back to the King, played one more round of trumps, which West again ducked, and took the marked Club finesse (East played the 3 - maybe an echo suggesting a doubleton, which would mean East had 4 Diamonds and West 3).

Now the Ace and a small Diamond ruffed in hand (East playing the 10). The Minor suit distribution was confirmed when I played a 3rd Club to Dummy's Ace and East discarded a Spade. I had 8 tricks and was guaranteed 2 more by ruffing Dummy's 4th Diamonds with my last remaining trump, the 10. Whether West ruffed this trick or not, he couldn't prevent me from making 10 tricks.

3 X is probably going for -3 and +500, but the vulnerable game was worth more. The apparent horrendous breaks were actually a blessing on this hand. I knew West couldn't lead Spades from the word go, and when the 5-0 trump break was revealed, it was a simple matter to engineer my 10 tricks.

Actually I did make one error in the play of this hand, which was the 2nd round of trumps. West could have make life difficult by going up with his Ace and playing a 3rd round and then I would have fallen back on the finesse (which was wrong). I had actually originally decided to  play West for the Queen (and take the finesse) just because I knew West had to have more cards in the Minors than East, but the 5 then 3 from East changed my mind, because if East had only 2 Clubs, they had to have 4 Diamonds. Having taken the 2nd Club finesse, though, better simply to play Ace and ruff a , back to the Ace and ruff the 4th Diamond high, and now West can't touch me.