| Dealer S |
|
E/W Vul | ||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||||
One of the funniest defences I have had the pleasure to be involved in recently was the following - as usual, with some instructive points. Please spot the errors as they occur - bearing in mind that West was being paid to avoid East's errors!
|
|||||||||||||||||||
A Stayman auction led to South declaring 2NT on the 
2 lead. East won and returned the 4 to the king, West following with the six.
Declarer crossed to a heart and played the 
10. East rose with the ace, and returned the J. West overtook and cashed 9, declarer pitching two spades from each hand.
The defence had brilliantly blocked the suit, so now West
led 
2. Declarer rose with the ace, and
confidently finessed the club, losing to the bare queen. East
now cashed his K and put partner in
with 10 to cash his fifth diamond, for
three down, and no doubt two tricks more than anybody else in
the room!
Before reading on, decide what mistakes were made.
Declarer played the hand pretty well, but made one error, He was correct not to finesse the spade, which might have led to one down in a cold contract had the king been offside. Where he erred was in throwing the second spade from dummy, as it could never cost to throw a club instead. Following the defence's lead, he too had a mental block as to the lie of the hand, and was careless as a result.
What of East? He actually committed three errors - the
second was rising with the A, which
could have dropped his partner's queen. The third was the
blocking play in diamonds. The first though was at trick two,
when he should have returned the 3.
Conventional wisdom is that you return your original fourth
highest in the suit. However, this is completely wrong. In this
case the four leaves partner uncertain as to whether you
started with A4, A43, AJ84, or AJ843 - not a very useful card!
Returning the lowest is less confusing - admittedly he will
still not know whether you have two, four or five cards in the
suit. But he does know that you don't have three, so he can
cash his top one when he gets in, which will be what you want
him to do.
And West? I admit to being West - and I considered
unblocking the 9 under the king. It
felt as though partner probably had five, and it would cater
for partner's spectacular play of the jack. On the other hand
it would look particularly stupid if partner had A43, and if he
had AJ84 there would be some hope that I might be able to cash
the fourth diamond retaining the lead, and then have a better
chance of finding the right switch. My view at the time was
that it was right not to unblock, but I leave that for you to
decide.
Finally let's award some `results merchant points' (the
biggest crime in bridge!) Two for anybody who thought declarer
ought to have dropped the doubleton Q,
and one to those who thought he should have taken the spade
finesse.
AQ3