Author Topic: OCP delivering the Goods!  (Read 2109 times)

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Offline OliverC

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OCP delivering the Goods!
« on: January 13, 2018, 05:24:30 PM »
OCP really delivered the goods on this hand I played with Eszter yesterday:

EW Game, Dealer North

You are South, with:

South
 !S K863
 !H 93
 !D J1084
 !C A62

Bidding (Opps silent)
North     South
1 !S        1NT
3 !C        ??

Knowing Partner probably has !S AQxxx, and !C KQxxx makes it very easy to visualise 10 tricks wherever their red suit distribution was, so I had no problem bidding 4 !S 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)
 !S K863
 !H 93
 !D J1084
 !C A62

!H 5 led

North
 !S A9542
 !H J2
 !D A
 !C KQ943

East led the !H 5. West took the !H AK and switched to the !S 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 !S Jack is a singleton, you are always losing 1 Spade trick, because East will have !S 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 !S A9 sat over West's !S 107, but if you win this trick in hand, you must lose a trick to the !S 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
Oliver