Thursday, September 14, 2006

One for the defense

Here's a nice hand from a few days ago:

Dealer:North
Vul:NS
Scoring:MP
6
T4
AT964
AT982
K875
QJ86
J72
Q4
AJ4
A753
KQ3
KJ3
QT932
K92
85
765

The bidding went:
1* - Dbl - pass - 2
pass - 2NT - pass - 3NT
all pass
(1 shows around 9-14HCP with 4+, and can contain longer )
My RHO probably bid 2NT just to try to rightside the contract.

I was sitting South and had to lead. I generaly don't like agressive leads, and there was every sign not to on this particular hand.
- Partner will probably be short in and chances are big that I won't have an entry if I can setup my suit anyway.
- Leading from under Kxxx gives the entire show away.
- Declarer will probably have a double stop.

So I decided to lead a , hoping to reach my partner's longest suit. We lead 1/3/5 and I thought my count would be important: I lead the 5. Partner nicely held up his Ace and declarer won with the J. Now K was played and partner took it immediatly, gave the suit a second of thought and correctly played a low to keep communication. This only fails when I had 53, but you might still get your trick back later. So the communication was still open. Declarer won in dummy and finessed to my Q. I had an easy continuation, and partner did what we worked for: cash the tricks. Declarer discarded in his hand and in dummy, so partner returned a small to his Ace. Now declarer tried a - squeeze (or splitting 3-3) by cashing his s. On the last I hold T92 K, and dummy still had K87. I had to keep my s since partner was all out (I already knew declarer had A as well), so I discarded my K. Lucky my partner had the T, otherwise declarer's squeeze would've worked. -2 was a great result.

GIB's Double Dummy Solver says we can only make 5 tricks. Declarer messed up by keeping his communication. If he kept K87 QJ J in dummy, he can easily take A, play to the J, a back to his Ace, and the last . NOW I'm squeezed in and ...

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