Pick a Plan

Playing pairs at our annual local regional, I pick up at favorable vulnerability:

KJ864 / 832 / K82 / 72

My partner is the dealer, and he opens 1. East bids 1, which is convenient as my 1 bid now shows five spades (with four I would make a negative double). West jumps straight to 4, and my partner goes to 4.

It looks like I'll get to play the hand. But after two passes the intrepid West goes to 5. Now I presume we'll be defending -- perhaps a double is in order? But wait, my partner is intrepid too! He bids 5.

And it's not over yet. After two more passes West doubles. Partner thinks for quite a while -- plainly he is thinking of redoubling -- but eventually he passes. Frankly, I'd like to redouble myself, but partner hesitated for sufficiently long that I don't think it would be ethical. So 5 doubled is passed out.

"Our partners like to bid a lot," I remark to East as West leads the A:

	A Q 5 – A 10 9 4 3 A J 10 8 4
	K J 8 6 4 8 3 2 K 8 2 7 2

W	N	E	S
	1	1	1
4	4	P	P
5	5	P	P
X	AP

A plethora of plans present themselves. My eye is first caught by the combination finesse in clubs. If I can lead twice toward the board, I'll have a good chance of establising the clubs for one loser. With three discards I can dump two losing hearts and a diamond and make six. But wait, that requires the enemy clubs to be 3-3. Also, there are entry problems. The only convenient way back to my hand is the K, and then, after the first club finesse presumably loses, if they lead a second heart I'd have to ruff with the A and then get back to my hand by overtaking the Q, and then I wouldn't have enough trumps left to draw trump.

What about the diamonds? If play out the AK and another (I don't care if the third round is ruffed), I could establish the diamonds for one loser, discard a club and a heart and make the contract. That only requires a 3-2 split in diamonds, much more likely than a 3-3 split in clubs. But it does have the same entry problem: if they lead a heart when in with the third diamond, I won't be able to draw trump. I could ruff on the board, draw one trump, discard a heart on a good diamond, let them ruff it, then ruff the next heart in hand. But what if they lead a club at that point? Hmmm, this is getting complicated. And I still haven't even played to trick one.

Wait a minute, how about this: I will duck a diamond at trick two! Then if they lead another heart I can ruff, draw one trump in dummy, come back to the K, and draw the remaining trump. With 3-2 splits in trumps and diamonds, I'm all set. And if I don't get decent diamond split, I'm down anyway, so I'm not really risking much by playing for one.

Yes, that's it. I ruff the first heart small and duck a diamond. A heart comes back, which I ruff. I draw one trump with dummy's remaining A, come back to the K (gratefully noting that both defenders follow), and draw trump (which split 3-2). Then I go back to the board with the A and discard my club loser and remaining heart on the established diamonds. Making six.

+750 is a top, although, as is often the case in these situations, the double was just the icing on the cake: +480 would have been worth 10.5 matchpoints out of 11. Of the pairs that played it in spades our way, only one other took 12 tricks.

The moral is that when entries are limited, ducking an early trick can help.

The full hand:

	A Q 5 – A 10 9 4 3 A J 10 8 4
3 2 A Q 9 5 4 Q 7 6 K 6 5		10 9 7 K J 10 7 6 J 5 Q 9 3
	K J 8 6 4 8 3 2 K 8 2 7 2

[Bethesda Regional, Tidal Basin Pairs, 7-5-2012]