Post by PubkeybreakerPost by Dave FlowerThis hand appeared in 'Improve your Defence'
A J 10 5
K 10 9 8 6
4 3 2
J
- K Q 9 8 7 6 3
3 2 -
Q J 8 7 10 6 5
K 8 6 5 4 3 2 Q 10 9
4 2
A Q J 7 5 4
A K 9
A 7
Playing in 6H, declarer wins the DQ lead, draws trumps, CA, club ruff,
and two more rounds of trumps.
'you must keep your remaining club (otherwise, declarer will be
able to either set up spades or to strip your last diamond and then
endplay you in spades).
I do not understand - how does declarer make the hand if East fails to keep a club ?
I don't see it either. OTOH if declarer ruffs a club and takes only
one more trump West must unblock in diamonds, otherwise West gets thrown
in with a diamond and then gives up a ruff-sluff.
This is one of those questions that computers can answer fairly easily.
I asked a double-dummy solver about the hand and it confirmed that East
needed to keep one club and both remaining diamonds.
The strategy it gives for declarer after East discards one club on the
two more rounds of trumps is to start by playing the remaining
trumps from declarer's side, discarding everything but spades in
dummy, with the follow-up depending on how many diamonds East keeps. If
East keeps two diamonds (thus going down to two spades) declarer keeps
the Ace of Diamonds, a small diamond, and two small spades in their own
hand. Declarer then ducks a spade to East, who will be forced to win the
trick (to prevent their last spade being drawn by the Ace); if they play
a spade now North will win and run the spades, if they play a diamond
then South will win with the Ace, cross to North with the remaining
spade, and again run the spades.
Meanwhile, if East goes down to one or zero diamonds, declarer plays the
Ace of Diamonds immediately, leaving East with only spades. Leading
spades at that point will effectively lead to a spade-only ending where
North has AJT and East has KQ9; North plays the ten, and East has to
choose between ducking (in which case North will just take the ace for
the tenth trick) and winning (in which case East is leading from K9 into
AJ and thus won't get any more tricks).
So the key to the hand is that if declarer runs /all/ the trumps, East
will be stuck in a spade/diamond squeeze. However, if East still has a
club left, it'll be a winner (because declarer has no trumps left to
ruff it).
West is irrelevant here due to being void in spades, and thus being
unable to have any influence over declarer's attempts to duck a spade.
--
ais523