Saturday, August 8, 2009

A Deeper Example

Partner opens 1 diamond. RHO overcalls 1 heart, which LHO raises to 2.

A diamond lead seems obvious, and I see this:



Declarer wins the 9, cashes the ace of hearts, then runs the ten of spades around to partner's jack. Partner cashes the king of clubs and ace of diamonds, then leads the 5 of diamonds to us for a ruff.



I was taking my time, and had a decent idea what was going on. Partner had both the queen of clubs and king of spades, and was likely out of hearts. I felt like there was a chance that declarer could rise with the ace of spades and run out, so I underled my ace of clubs. Partner rose with the queen, and returned the two of diamonds. Declarer discarded a spade, and I ruffed for down 1.

...earning roughly 45% of the masterpoints. I was crushed, after all the analysis I'd done.

Turns out some people put 2 hearts down 2. Reviewing their play, the key play was to return a spade, NOT a club. It turns out that declarer was 3433. The club trick was never going away, but the spade could. I had feared that declarer was 2533 and would simply rise with the ace if I returned a spade, and never lose the king. As it turned out, if declarer did rise with the ace, he would wind up stuck on the board, and would be forced to either lose an extra club, or the trump trick that I wound up with anyways.

I'm pleased when I take the time to analyze hands like this. I just need to keep thinking, and not stop when the process gets a bit deeper, a bit more complicated.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If after ruffing the third diamond, you shift to a spade, declarer can rise with A and discard his spade loser on the good diamond. How would that help?

The problem occured earlier! If declarer does not have CT, you can guarantee -2, it looks like.

You should overtake the CK with CA and switch to a spade!
If declarer finesses, you get your 2 ruffs in addition to 2 spades, 2 clubs and a diamond.

If declarer goes up with A and tries to draw trump, you get and extra club trick (this is where the CT comes in).

If declarer goes up with A and tries to cut communication by play a C, pard has an entry in the form of SK.

Anonymous said...

Ok, since dummy has CJT, assume I am talking about the C9.

(I am the previous Anonymous poster)