Trump tactics

[OliverC]

Eszter and I got into a slightly dodgy slam on this hand (entirely my fault, I concede), but Declarer's tactics in the play of the hand is a point well worth making as it potentially applies to many other hands:

EW Game, Dealer South

South (Dummy)
J
A85
AKQ9
AQ864

5 led

North
A83
Q10976
J72
KJ

Bidding (Opps silent)
South     North
1          1
1NT⁽¹⁾     2 ⁽²⁾
2 ⁽³⁾     2NT⁽⁴⁾
3 ⁽⁵⁾     3NT⁽⁶⁾
6 ⁽⁷⁾     All Pass

(1) Beta
(2) 3 Controls
(3) Gamma in Hearts
(4) Hxxxx in Hearts
(5) Epsilon in Clubs
(6) 2nd and 3rd round control.
(7) A little risky. Good when North has Ace and QJ10xx, but hopeless when North has the King and Kxxxx. Not a great slam when North has what they actually had, either. I probably should have gone quietly here, but decided not to...

The Play
On a lead, how should you approach the play? It's a given that you need something nice to happen in Hearts, but even if you assume that something nice is going to happen there, the hand still needs some care.
The important question is this: Do you need to worry about trying to ruff North's losing Spades with South's short trumps?.

On some hands the answer would undoubtedly be "Yes!", but on this hand, with a Diamond lead rather than a Spade lead, the answer should be a resounding "No!". There are lots of tricks available in the Minor suits on which North's losing Spades can be discarded. Even on an initial Spade lead, it's arguable that drawing Opps' trumps is the overriding concern. Yes you might end up -3 when East turns up with KJx, but you're probably off regardless if that's the case and the difference between -1 and -3 in 6 when most people will be in 4 is not that great.

Eszter took a middle road: Winning trick 1 in Dummy. at trick 2 she led the Jack, took her Ace and ruffed a Spade. Now a Club to the King (maybe originally intending to ruff another Spade) but then she changed tacks and played a Heart to Dummy's Ace, before cashing 2 more Clubs, discarding her last Spade on the 3rd before leading a second Heart towards her Q109.

This worked out okay: The Minor suits were both 3-3 and West turned up with KJx, so had no winning options on the 2nd Heart and 12 tricks were duly gathered for a very good score, because few NS Pairs bid to a making slam.


The thing is that after trick 1, Declarer has the tempo: her control of the Spade suit is still intact and Opps have to gain the lead twice in order to be able to (1) attack Spades and (2) to be able to cash any Spade tricks. If Declarer didn't have all of the Minor suit winners waiting in the wings to take care of her losing Spades, or if her control of Spades had already been removed (at trick 1), it might be a different matter. Here, though, since we need to get the Hearts sorted out for only 1 loser, it's not the right tactics to voluntarily give up our control of Spades.

Better to attack the Hearts straight away and not touch Spades at all. If the Hearts come in for 1 loser (ie: West has one or both of the missing Heart honours and we guess right), even if either opponent wins the 2nd round of Hearts, they are not in a position to cash a Spade trick. All they can do is to force out the Ace and we still have the tempo to complete drawing trumps and enjoy our Minor suit winners.

This sort of principle applies on many hands. Ultimately it comes down to counting winners and losers. Here we have umpteen winners in the Minors and there's no need to gain any extra tricks by ruffing Spades in the short hand. If we keep Dummy's trumps intact, we can potentially still come to our 12 tricks when the Hearts are not ideally placed but still catchable (eg: West with KJxx) as long as we retain the ability to lead Hearts twice towards our Q109. Ruffing a Spade in Dummy early on takes away that option.