Thud And Blunder

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday December 8, 2004

Ron Klinger

There were a number if intriguing facets to this deal from the final of the Grand National Open Teams:

Declarer won with dummy's SQ and led a heart to the queen and ace. West shifted to a club, taken in dummy for another heart lead. East won this and returned a spade, ruffed by West for one down. East-West +50.

It is not normally attractive to lead dummy's long suit, even when you have a singleton. This changed when South signed off in 5H, indicating that two key cards were missing. West had trump control and now knew that East must have an entry. West therefore led the singleton spade, hoping to find East's entry after taking the HA. Mission accomplished.

At the other table Doug Newlands found a way to cloud the issue after Denise Newland (no relation) showed belated support for hearts:

South's bidding plan was to show hearts and clubs and then raise the spades. This path would show diamond shortage but only three-card spade support. With 4+ spade support, South could splinter at once.

The plan changed when North jumped to 4H, indicating three-card heart support and hence strong spades, else the heart raise would have come at once. Newlands asked for key cards and was disappointed to hear only one opposite. He was never going to bid slam any more and had no way to revert to spades without risking that partner keeps bidding. He decided to muddy the waters with the 5D ask for the trump queen. He knew the answer would be 5H as he held the HQ himself. The illusion he created was that he was lacking one key card only and declined to bid 6H because the trump queen was also missing.

Answer to yesterday's problem:

The illusion worked, for the moment anyway. Had South bid 5H over 5C, Neill would have led the spade singleton, but if South was missing only one key card, East would probably not have an entry. Neill therefore chose the D10.

Declarer played low from dummy, as did East, and won in hand. A club to the queen was followed by a low heart: eight - queen - ace. West noted the significance of the HQ and now knew that the 5D trump queen ask was a con. He therefore shifted to the S7. (Declarer could have continued the illusion by leading a heart from dummy to his jack. That would have suggested that his trumps were headed by the K-J.)

Newlands rose with the SA and led a second heart. I took this and foolishly tried to cash the DK instead of giving partner the spade ruff. That gave North-South 450 and +11 Imps.

How should I have known that the DK would not survive? Simple. If South had started with A-x or longer in diamonds, he would have played the DQ from dummy at trick 1.If South judged that West would not be leading away from the DK, perhaps he should have played the DQ from dummy anyway. That would make the defence for West and East harder still.

Another strange feature. Both tables played in a poor heart contract (which would fail on most 4-1 breaks), while a spade contract is much safer. It is true that 5S could be defeated if East hits on the heart lead, but that is hardly likely. On any other lead declarer will make 5S whenever 5H succeeds and often when 5H fails.

We learn from our failures. Success merely confirms us in our mistakes. (Carl Jung).

Tomorrow's problem: