I royally mucked up the defence on this hand, but really should have got it right, as all of the clues were there!
You are South at Love All. Opps have bid to 4
by East.
West (Dummy) KQ2
A10
KQ863
J97
South 10873
9864
A54
K6
You lead the
6. Declarer wins in Dummy and cashes the
KQ. Partner plays the Jack of Spades on the first round and then discards the
2. Declarer now leaves off the Spades and plays another 3 rounds of Hearts, (KQJ in his hand) discarding two Clubs from Dummy. Partner discards another small Club on the 4th Heart. Now Declarer leads a small Club from hand and you rise with the King.
What now?
Well I actually had not one but
two chances to get this one right, but didn't: Clearly Declarer is sat there with
A96 and I'm owed a Spade trick. Partner's Club discards are suggesting she started with 5-card Clubs, obviously headed by at least the Ace. That, in turn, means she must have 4 Diamonds, which gives Declarer only one of them.
Declarer needs the Club ruff not only to ruff a losing Club, but also to have any chance of accessing Dummy's Diamonds. Giving up my natural trump trick in order to deny Declarer any chance of getting rid of any losing Clubs should have been a no-brainer. Instead I cashed the
Ace. Even when Eszter gave me a count signal with the 7, and Declarer played his singleton 10 I could still have switched to a Spade to defeat the contract, but had a senior moment and failed to realise that in giving up one trick, I would actually
gain two others.
Duuuuh!
