Preserving Entries

[OliverC]

The ability to move freely between the two hands is a really precious commodity. Sometimes, entries to one hand or another are few in number and on such occasions you need to protect those entries like mad, and work hard to create other entries where possible. This was a simple hand, but it shows the difference when you do the above rather than using up entries needlessly or squandering them:

Love All, Dealer East

Bidding
East     South     West     North
1       No           No         X
2       No           No         3
All Pass

South (Dummy)
K76
J1062
J74
J83

Queen led

North
A53
KQ7
AQ652
A9

I knew Eszter had a strong hand from her bidding, and clearly the King was well placed, but I didn't feel my motley collection justified any movement over 3 (rightly as it turned out - the Spade lead gives the defence a tempo and a Club lead would have given Declarer real problems in 3NT, since West had Q10xxx).

East led the Queen. How do you assess your chances and how do you play?

Firstly, Declarer needs to recognise that the majority of the outstanding high cards will be with East rather than West, so the chances of the Ace and King being with West are greatly reduced. You have only one sure entry to Dummy, which is the King and even that will be under threat if the Spades are 6-1 (which is a serious threat given the bidding).

Safest, therefore, to take that entry while it's a relatively sure thing, so win trick 1 in Dummy with the King. Now what? There's absolutely no incentive to delay attacking trumps, but how is it best to play the suit? With no other considerations low from Dummy to the Queen is the best play, but you might play differently in this situation when it's more likely that the finesse of the Queen will lose (eg: Small to the Ace and small back towards the Jack, which might gain you a tempo when East ducks with Kxx in case partner has the doubleton Queen). One thing is sure, there are two very good reasons why you should not lead the Jack here:

• You inevitably lose an extra Diamond trick when West has the singleton King, and lose a trick unnecessarily when West has Kx
• More critically, when the finesse loses, you have not gained back an entry to Dummy. If the finesse of the Queen loses, the Jack becomes an entry

(2) Above pretty much determines how you should play, which is the standard "best line" of small to your Queen. If East has the King, Dummy's Jack is now an entry. Why is this important? Well the Jack of Hearts is why: You want to enjoy Dummy's 4th Heart in order to be able to discard either a losing Club or a losing Spade from your hand. You cannot rely on an entry in Hearts themselves if whichever defender holds the Ace holds up twice and takes the 3rd round.

Eszter led the Jack of Diamonds, which lost to East's King. East now solved our problem, however, by promptly leading out the Ace!. Now what? If you just played the 7 from your hand, then this post is aimed at you, because there is absolutely no reason not to play the King or Queen under the Ace, thereby gaining an entry to Dummy's long Heart in the Heart suit itself. If you play the 7 on auto-pilot you've blocked the Hearts and can never get rid of a black suit loser.

If you were leading the Heart suit yourself, you'd start with the King and then the Queen in order to force out the Ace. Why play any differently when Opps freely play the Ace of their own accord? Okay, we're only talking about a relatively insignificant overtrick on this occasion, but if you don't get into the habit of unblocking suits like this automatically and actively seeking to create entries at every opportunity, then you will find it much harder to do so when it's critical to the success of your contract.