by John Turner
We were playing in the usual pairs game on a July Tuesday at
Trumpington. The opponents who came to our table for the last
round were not impressed with the general standard. "There are
some absurd results on the travellers. On one hand, for
example, the whole field was in 6NT+1, with 12 solid tricks and
a simple finesse for 13, but one declarer managed only 12!". We
nodded gravely at such incompetence, but exchanged a knowing
glance with each other - for it was my partner who had made
only 12 tricks! Actually, I thought she played it well, though
she (& I) missed an interesting point at the end.
South opened 1NT and ended in 6NT, oppo passing throughout.
West led the 
7.
There are indeed 12 top tricks and there's the easy shot of
the spade finesse for 13. But pard saw that if the spade
finesse were wrong, and if LHO also held at least 4 hearts,
then LHO could be squeezed. To find out more, she won the
opening lead in hand and started by cashing the minor suits.
When it transpired that LHO had 3 clubs and no diamonds, and
therefore 10 cards in the majors, it became very likely that he
had longish spades. Then pard continued with the remaining two
top hearts, discovering that LHO had started with 6 hearts and
therefore 4 spades. The lead is now in dummy. Dummy is down to
a low spade and a losing heart; declarer's last two cards are
the 
AQ. LHO's last two cards are known
to be a master heart and a spade, and RHO's are known to be
both spades. The fact that LHO had started life with 4 spades
means that LHO is 4:3 on to hold the SK, other things being
equal. Are there any contrary inferences to be drawn from the
opponents' failure to bid or the play to date? I don't think
so. Ergo, it was correct to play for the drop, not
finesse. On this reasoning pard played unsuccessfully for the
drop and we got a complete bottom.
That's what I thought at the time. However, my attention was
later drawn to Mestel's Law Of Useless Semi-Yarboroughs, which
observes that in many situations, a defender holding a LOUSY
hand having signalled a few times, gets bored and simply
follows suit or simply discards up the line. This principle can
be surprisingly powerful. In the above hand, the fact that RHO
has played the 9 and then the J suddenly becomes deeply interesting and
significant. The Law suggests that his remaining card in spades
is the King. Or, to put it the other way round, if his
remaining spade is the 7 (the only other card out), is it
likely that he was awake enough to play the 9 and then the Jack
from J-9-7?
Of course, the LOUSY Law holds less well in a game where the
standard is high, and on this hand an expert RHO might indeed
find it routine to play the spades out of order like that. In
practice, RHO was an excellent player - as one would expect at
Trumpington - so maybe declarer's reasoning was right after
all.
AQJ8
AKJ