The opening lead to a contract on which you are Declarer, is often terribly useful in suggesting a good line of play. Take this hand. You are North, Love All, and you and Partner have bid to 3NT via 1
- 1
- 1NT - 3NT. East leads the
3 against your 3NT contract, and this is what you can see:
South (Dummy) AKJ9
3
A872
J853
3 led
South 43
A8653
KQ9
A62
On trick 1, you play low from Dummy and West contributes the 10. How do you plan the play?
.
.
.
The opening lead and the play to trick 1 suggests that East started out with
Jxxx, so there are probably 4 Diamond tricks there for the taking with the help of a 3rd round finesse of the 9 if East doesn't cover. One immediate problem is that the Diamonds are blocked, so you
must cash the
King and run the
9 whilst you still have an entry to Dummy with a Spade. As a matter of probability, better to finesse the
nine of Spades, because if that fails and West plays the ten, you have the option later on to finesse the Jack (a 75% chance for 3 Spade tricks).
On the other hand, you don't want to expose the Club or Heart suits too early by using up your Aces on those suits if East
covers the 3rd Diamond, just so that you can take the Spade finesse. That probably gives you 4 Diamonds, the two round suit Aces, and 3 Spades, which is enough for your contract.
A reasonable compromise, therefore, is to take the finesse of the Spade 9 immediately immediately. If it wins, then come back to the King of Diamonds and run the 9. If the Spade finesse
loses, West is unlikely to continue Spades into a visible tenace in Dummy (whichever Spade you finessed), and is likely to switch back to Diamonds or try one of the round suits. Either way you have retained your entry to dummy and can continue with your plan.
On this hand, Partner did indeed take the Spade finesse at trick 2, inserting the Jack, which won. She then returned to hand via the
King (West played the 6 and East the 3). Thereafter, however, she lost her way: Instead of running the
9 at trick 4, she cashed Ace and another
Club. East won the second Club with the Queen and switched to the Jack of Hearts. Even now it wasn't too late (Declarer can win, run the
9 and whether East covers or not Declarer still has access to 2 Spade winners and the
Ace in Dummy. Fatally, though, Partner
ducked the
Jack. Now East returned a Spade and Declarer was locked in Dummy and unable to get back to hand to finesse the Diamond at all, and inevitably ended up one off.
The opening lead was the key clue, here. If Declarer plays the
9 at trick 4 and East plays the 5, is it more likely that East led the
3 from
543, or from
J543? By this point Declarer already has 3 Spade tricks, and so needs to look no further than the Diamonds for the 9th trick.
