This was a good example hand that came up today while I was playing with OktayA: You are South, Game All, Dealer West. West opens 2
which is passed round to you. You try your luck with 3
and this is passed out
North K3
J84
K10854
Q84
South QJ2
A9753
AJ73
7
West leads the
2. You play low from Dummy and capture East's 9 with your Jack. Plan the play...
.
.
.
You can see that you've landed on your feet here, in that 2!S is probably going to make fairly comfortably. You just have to make your contract.
Losers: 1 Spade, 1 Club, and probably 2 Hearts. No problems there.
Tricks: 5 Diamonds, 2 Spades, and hopefully 3 Hearts.
Dangers: Clearly there is a Diamond ruff in the offing which is not quite such a problem if it's the hand with 3 or more trumps that's ruffing, because they'll probably be ruffing with a natural trump trick, but it'll definitely cost you the contract if it's the hand with shorter trumps that is ruffing.
Options: If Spades are 6-2 you might be able to get across to Dummy safely to lead the K
, possibly pinning the singleton 10 in West's hand, but that is a fairly fanciful distribution to play for.
Why look for exotic solutions when by far the most sensible thing is just to play for a 3-2 trump break? Bang down the Ace of Hearts and lead a second Heart towards the Jack. This assures you of 9 tricks whenever the trumps are 3-2. Moreover, the opening lead looks and feels like a singleton, which makes a singleton Heart with West more unlikely.
The full hand:
North K3
J84
K10854
Q84
West East A1098765
4
Q6
K102
2
Q96
K32
AJ10965
South QJ2
A9753
AJ73
7
At our table (Oktay was West and I was East), the luckless Declarer didn't follow the common-sense approach. At trick 2 he led the Queen of Spades. Oktay hopped up with the Ace and returned a Spade, which I ruffed. I now led the 6
(a Club through the Q84 would have been nice since by now it was probable that Oktay was 7213 shape). Oktay ruffed and returned a 3rd Spade ruffed in Dummy with the Jack and overruffed by my King. The Ace of Clubs and a 3rd Diamond ruffed by Oktay's
Q gave us 6 tricks for +200 and a nice 2½ IMP gain.
When you can see Opps are likely to start ruffing, then unless an alternative strategy is obvious, it often pays to forget about subtle plays such as finesses and just go for the quickest method of divesting Opps of their trumps. The probability of a 3-2 split in Hearts is nearly 70%. Why look further? If the trumps are 4-1 the likelyhood is that you're going to be down
however you play the hand. Here you can afford to lose two trump tricks so best to just go ahead and lose them as quickly as possible
