The bidding went:
|
South |
West |
North |
East |
|
- |
2S (1) |
Pass |
2NT (2) |
|
Pass |
3C (3) |
Pass |
4H (4) |
|
Pass |
Pass |
Pass |
|
1) Lucas 2, showing at least 5 spades plus another suit, 6-10 points
2) What is your other suit?
3) Damn!
4) We are 30 imps down, this might be a vulnerable game, and there is nothing from the bidding to stop my partner holding 2 or 3 hearts including an honour.
South led a spade, and dummy was:
Sp Axxxx Ht 3 2 D ---- Cl QJxxxx
At this stage, I was grateful for the 2 little hearts. I could have stopped, thought, and planned a dummy reversal, with a Devil’s Coup and a rolling criss-cross squeeze to bring home the contract, but instead I decided to close my eyes and run for it. Thus the first 6 tricks were
Ace of spades, spade ruff, diamond ruff, club ruff, diamond ruff and a club ruff. Dummy now served no further purpose, but my hand was Ht A 10 9 8 D KQ10 and I had 6 tricks. There was a glimmer of hope – if the trumps were 2-2, then I would have 3 further trump tricks, and the defence couldn’t stop me establishing a diamond winner for my 10th trick. So I led out A hearts. Usually, dropping a singleton King on one’s left is a matter for deep satisfaction, but in this case, it was with regret that I saw South play his K hearts. Without a plan B, I simply carried on with another heart - perhaps he had KQ? – no such luck, North won the Q and returned a black card, which I had to ruff. Now I was down to Ht 10 and D KQ10, with 8 tricks in the bag. I led out K D, expecting that my last trump would then be drawn and I would lose the last 2 tricks to black suited cards, but …. South dropped the Jack of diamonds whilst North played his Ace, revealing that North’s last 3 cards must be Ht J and 2 little diamonds. However he played it, I had my 9th and 10th tricks and was home for +620.
The deal was thus (black cards irrelevant):
Sp Axxxx Ht 3 2 D ---- C QJxxxx Sp Sp Ht K Ht QJx D Jxx D Axxxxx C C Sp x Ht A 10 9 8 xxx D KQ10 xx C ----
Although I confess to not having a particularly well-worked out strategy at the start of the hand, I could see that there must be vanishingly few, if any, diamond distributions that wouldn’t result in my losing 3 diamond tricks (plus at least 1 guaranteed heart loser) if I had to lead diamonds out from my own hand. Hence the cross-ruff at the start. As the cards lie, the contract is only beatable by what would have been an unbelievably brilliant lead of the singleton King of hearts!
The scores at the other tables were:
Mike and Tony (also East-West) One down in 4 hearts -100
Lynn and Dave defended against 3 hearts, which made -140
Dave and John also defended against 3H, which made -140
So 9 tricks only at the other 3 tables – did anyone find the KH lead – or did declarers use dummy’s 2 and 3 of hearts to draw trumps?
Overall, our +620 meant we won the board by +240, for 6 imps.
|