Here's a cool hand I defended tonight. It's a declarer play problem.
All white, matchpoints
A76 / 75 / AK2 / AQJT7
RHO opens 2 Spades, you choose 3 Clubs, pard bids 3 Hearts, you bid 3NT.
Lefty leads the 5 of Spades. Righty covers whichever card you play from Dummy.
QT9 / AKT82 / T / K862
A76 / 75 / AK2 / AQJT7
What's the plan?
11 tricks are obviously cold (2,2,2,5). You can make 13 if hearts are 3-3 with QJ on your left, so if you played for that, you have my sympathy (it's probably the percentage line) but only 11 tricks.
To make 12 tricks (the maximum possible on the actual lie) you have to DUCK the first Spade. You've got to lose a Spade trick eventually (again, unless Hearts are QJx onside) and you want to rectify the count for a possible red suit squeeze against LHO. The odds likely favor QJ onside over 7-2 Diamonds (which you need for the squeeze to work) but it's often a good idea to leave your options open as long as you can.
If you win trick 2 and cash 3 rounds of Clubs, you find out that LHO started with a stiff Club. Now the squeeze is becoming a somewhat likelier possibility (RHO has 6 Spades and 3 Clubs. You need him to be 2-2 in the reds for the squeeze to gain over the simple double Heart hook.)
You take the marked Spade finesse and cash all your black suit winners. In the end position:
- / AKT8 / T / -
- / 75 / AK2 / -
LHO has to find a pitch from
- / J94 / QJ8 / -
His partner has no red suit help and 12 tricks wrap.
I hear a couple of voices of dissent ... 'I won the first Spade and fired a Spade back to rectify the count, then played for the squeeze.' Unfortunately that's not good enough. If RHO ducks the 2nd Spade, you haven't rectified the count and 11 tricks is your limit on the hand.
At the table, Declarer won and cashed 5 rounds of Clubs. Now when he played a Spade, I didn't have to duck:
QT / AKT8 / T / -
76 / 75 / AK2 / -
I won the Spade and returned a Diamond, which broke up the squeeze because it was Declarer's only remaining entry to his hand.
Obviously 6 Clubs is where you'd want to be at IMPs, and probably at matchpoints too. But -460 was worth only 37.5% of the matchpoints.
'wonder if we had 6 clubs?
'nope, 9'
'good, ty'
Pard's hand (LHO)
5 / J943 / QJ87543 / 5
My hand (RHO)
KJ8432 / Q6 / 96 / 943
