Problems for the Defence?

[OliverC]

Had a nice hand with Eszter yesterday whilst playing against Clement and Mehmet (We had well over 60 kibitzers at one point!). There were no problems in the bidding - a typical case of OCP delivering the goods:

Love All, Dealer South
North
  K10875
  J8
  8
  AK1053

South
  AJ4
  AQ7
  AQJ1032
  4

Bidding
1 - 1NT
2 - 3    // Gamma   /  Hxxxx
3 - 3NT   // Relay Beta  /  4 Controls
4 - 4NT   // Epsilon   /  2nd round control
5 - 5    // Rep Epsilon   /  Shortage
6              // Enough missing a honour

I used Gamma immediately to ensure I was Declarer, to protect my red-suit tenaces. Obviously the dream hand with North would have held the King of Diamonds rather than the King of Clubs, or the Queen of Spades rather than the King (because now she'd have to have what I needed everywhere else), but at least once Eszter showed up with a shortage in Diamonds, she had to have the Ace of Clubs, which made this a 75% shot (one of two finesses).

The Play
That 75% chance turned into a 100% when Clement, on my left, led a Spade, which ran round to East's 9 and my Jack. two more rounds of Spades ending in Dummy took care of trumps, Clement having started with Qxx. In practice that lead didn't really cost the defence, because I have to finesse the Spades against West anyway (because I can pick up Q9xx in the West hand, but not in the East hand)

How to tackle the Diamonds? There's a case for taking the finesse into the West hand, because West cannot do you any damage in Hearts, but Clement's lead at trick 1 persuaded me that he had no "good" lead (it's unusual to lead a trump from Qxx against a slam), so I chose the ruffing finesse against West. Actually I feel the ruffing finesse is definitely superior in any case. Finessing against East can only be done once and therefore you cannot cope with East having Kxxx (insufficient entries to hand without taking the finesse), whereas the ruffing finesse caters for either defender having Kxxx.

I erred slightly in that I should make my first discard from Dummy a Club rather than a Heart, which caters for West having Kxxxx, because now I have the option of taking the Heart finesse (and a second outside entry back to hand) for my 13th trick. If East wins the King of Diamonds, the are splitting no worse than 4-2 so 12 tricks still assured.

In practice Clement had started with
  Q32
  K32
  K954
  Q97
so I still came out with 13 tricks, which was worth 11 IMPs (and would have been worth 100% at Pairs) because only one other pair had found the slam and they had only made 12 tricks.

[lute57]

Well done, Sifu and Ezster.

I particularly enjoyed the thinking behind the play of the hand. Thanks for sharing.

John