Hi John,
You’re right that if 9 tricks are to be had then they must be 3 spades, 1 heart, 2 diamonds and 3 clubs (assuming a 3-3 split). If A
is with West, then we can potentially live with one less black suit trick. There is still much work to be done. If the plan is to score 3 clubs and 2 spades, it means that we have to lose the lead twice in spades (assuming any 3-2 split) and once in clubs. This will allow opps to set up their heart suit and score 5 tricks before we get our 9. So it means we have to plan on 3 spade tricks: either assume K
is with West or hope for Kx in East hand. So at trick 2 we would play A
and another, planning to either finesse the Q or duck one round of spades, depending on which guess we decide to take. Either of these two lines could work, since we only need to lose the lead once in spades. Assuming A
with West, the first line (which is what you went with) is 25%, while the second is 17% (34% chance that East has Kx in spades and 50% chance that West has A
).
However, what if East has the Ace of hearts? This is very likely given the lead. Now we need 6 black suit tricks because we will get only 1 heart. We need to lose the lead twice (once in spades and once in clubs), so opps could potentially score their 3 hearts, a spade and a club before we get our 9. West is the dangerous opponent; if we let him in, then we lose the timing. However if we lose the lead to East in spades, they cannot play hearts from their side, so we have a fighting chance to lose the lead again in clubs. So going back to the spade suit line: it looks like finessing West for K
has no chance but hoping that East has K
still gives us a chance. This is roughly an additional 6%: 50% for East to have A
x 34% for East to have Kx or Kxx in
(only need 2 spades) x 35% for clubs to split 3-3.
So it looks like 25% for the spade finesse play and 17+6 = 23% for the spade duck play. The declarer Tom Townsend smelt a rat and suspected East to have A
, so he chose the latter line. However, he was not out of the woods yet with the spade suit duck. We still need to lose the lead in clubs and if we allow West in, we are back to the same problem of opps running 3 tricks in hearts. So we need to engineer it such that we lose the club trick to East, meaning that we have to hope for East to have Qxx in clubs. Opponents are world-class players and they will see this coming right from trick 1. East will happily throw his Q if he sees declarer play A or K, so that partner can win the third round of clubs and lead a heart. Note that this play doesn’t cost if declarer has AKJ of clubs since it means that they were entitled to win a club finesse anyway. It looks like the contract is doomed and Bianchedi will be the hero as East …
… but wait, is there hope yet for our dashing British pair against the foxy Argentinians? Wait for part three, the final act in this intriguing drama!
By the way it took me an hour to work all this out but it took Andrew and Kit barely 1 minute to not only see the pitfall in the club suit but also work out a winning line, assuming East has Qxx. I can only stare at them in awe and so I’m going to pause for dramatic effect to let everyone try to figure it out. You will come to realize, as I did, why they are truly world class compared to mere mortals like us.
