Post by Dave FlowerPost by Dave FlowerAn interesting hand came up at Northampton last Monday.
Matchpoints, dealer North, love all
A K J 4 3
J 8 5
A 10 7 3
A
10 6
K Q 9 7 3
9 5
K 7 5 2
1S pass 2H pass
4H pass pass pass
My thoughts on this (which might be completely wrong!): win CA
(obviously), cash SAK; regardless of whether or not the Queen drops,
lead S3; if East shows out, ruff with the lowest heart that wins the
trick; if East had a spade left, ruff with H7. If that gets me into
hand, I cash CK discarding D3 and ruff a club low. Then lead another
low spade, planning to ruff high; if I'm allowed, I'll ruff a club
with the HJ, and if the opponents take the HA and lead a trump back in
order to stop the cross-ruff, I have a tenace around the HT in both
hands (J8 in duummy, Q9 in hand), so will end up with just one trump
loser. If I need to discard (e.g. if E takes the HA early), I discard
a diamond.
This line seems capable of 12 tricks if everything goes well, but 11 is
more likely; lower amounts seem possible but less likely. (It's
matchpoints, and 4H looks like a normal contract, so a gamble for an
overtrick is worthwhile as long as it's more likely to help than hurt.
I wouldn't expect to go down anyway on this line, though.)
The main line I'm actually worried about is the opponents taking HA and
leading a diamond at an inconvenient moment, which might lead to me
being stuck in hand (rather than dummy). As I want to be able to at
least threaten a cross-ruff, I can't draw trumps early, which means that
even in the likely case where the SQ is ruffed out, I may not have an
opportunity to cash the SJ without it being ruffed.
--
ais523