Board 43

Board 43 (Click to download pbn file)
Neither vulnerable

♠ 8 7 5 4 ♥ 8 2 ♦ K 10 8 4 3 ♣ Q 6

I pass in first seat; partner opens one notrump in third seat. Everyone passes, and West leads the jack of hearts:

	NORTH ♠ 8 7 5 4 ♥ 8 2 ♦ K 10 8 4 3 ♣ Q 6
	SOUTH ♠ K J 3 ♥ A 7 6 3 ♦ Q 7 2 ♣ A J 8

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	1 NT
(All pass)

It looks as if I need to take four diamond tricks, two aces, and one more trick in a black suit. If the defense can hold up the diamond ace until the third round, that extra black-suit trick will have to be the club queen, which I will need as a dummy entry. Meanwhile, the opponents have at least three hearts and two aces to cash. If I have to use the club queen as an entry to dummy, they will have the club king as well. In that case I can't afford to let them take a second spade trick nor can I afford five-two hearts. This isn't going to be easy.

My best chance to run diamonds without a side entry is to play East for ace doubleton or West for ace-jack doubleton. I could either play a diamond to the ten or I could lead the diamond queen out of my hand first, then lead a diamond to the ten. The latter seems better. If West has ace third of diamonds, he must duck, since from his point of view I could have queen-jack. I might then work out to play the king on the next round, picking up East's jack doubleton. East is equally likely to have ace-small as to have jack-small, so, other things being equal, it's a toss-up whether to play the ten or the king on the second round.

East overtakes the jack of hearts with the queen. I see no compelling reason to win this, and I would like to have as much information as possible before I play diamonds. So I play the deuce. East continues with the king. I duck again, playing the six, and West follows with the five. East continues with the four of hearts--ace--nine. I pitch a spade from dummy.

I continue as planned by leading the queen of diamonds--six--three--five. If West plays the nine on the second diamond, I'll have something to think about, but there's no sense worrying about that yet. Which diamond should I lead?

___

The deuce. The only way my play can matter is if West has ace third (or ace-jack third) and has to make a decision before seeing his partner's second card. If he thinks I have queen doubleton, he might find some reason to play the ace in an attempt to hold me to one diamond trick. If I play the seven, he can't possibly think I have a doubleton, since his partner would have played the deuce from three. If I play the deuce, it's possible that his partner's five was lowest from jack-seven-five (or nine-seven-five). Could West really find some plausible reason to hop with the ace on the second diamond? It's not my job to figure that out. My job is simply to give West the opportunity to do so. The seven doesn't give him that opportunity, and the deuce does. So the deuce is the right play.

On the deuce of diamonds, West plays the jack. Good. This hand had the potential to take quite a long time if he had played the nine. I play dummy's king, and East wins with the ace. What's going on? Did West play the jack from jack-nine or did East forget to duck?

East shifts to the spade deuce. He can't have the ace, since he passed in second seat and has already shown up with nine high-card points, so I play the jack. West wins with the ace. The spade king is my seventh trick. Making one.

	NORTH ♠ 8 7 5 4 ♥ 8 2 ♦ K 10 8 4 3 ♣ Q 6
WEST ♠ A 10 6 ♥ J 10 9 5 ♦ J 6 ♣ K 10 5 3		EAST ♠ Q 9 2 ♥ K Q 4 ♦ A 9 5 ♣ 9 7 4 2
	SOUTH ♠ K J 3 ♥ A 7 6 3 ♦ Q 7 2 ♣ A J 8

I didn't need the queen of spades to be onside.  If the jack of spades loses to the queen, West is end-played after cashing his heart.  Even if he has a third diamond to play, I only have to read his shape to make it.  I know he has both the club king and the spade ace.  When I run dummy's diamonds, he must come down to three cards.  I must guess whether he has a singleton king of clubs, in which case I drop it, or king doubleton, in which case I throw him in with a spade.

That means that, if West had followed to the second diamond with the nine instead of the jack, my percentage guess would have been to play the ten.  If I'm right, I've made the contract (unless I misguess West's shape in the end position).  On the other hand, if I play the king and I'm right, it's not over yet.  I still need to find West with the club king, and I need to find a favorable spade position.

Now for the big mystery.  Why did East take the diamond ace on the second round of diamonds? Possibly because he thought I needed only two diamond tricks to come to seven tricks. And he could have been right. If I had

♠ K x ♥ A x x x ♦ Q x x ♣ A K J x,

then his defense was correct. Is this problem solvable? Is there any way East could work out whether I had this hand or the hand I actually held?

Suit preference (which Jack seems not to play) might help some, but it won't solve the problem entirely. At trick three, West has a choice of playing the ten or the nine of hearts. Certainly with

♠ A J 10 x ♥ J 10 9 x ♦ J x ♣ x x x

he would play the ten. So if he plays the nine, East shouldn't play him to hold that hand. He should duck the second diamond.

What should he do if West does play the ten? Since West has only two cards to choose from, he must show suit preference for one side suit or the other.  If he has something in only one of the black suits, his choice of cards is easy.  But if he has something in both suits (as he does on the actual hand), he must judge which holding partner is more likely to care about. 

So all East can conclude if West plays the ten of hearts is that he doesn't have a hand where all his side cards are in clubs.  That doesn't help. He has to use some other criterion to make his decision. If I were East, I imagine I would still duck the second diamond, reasoning that declarer might have been hesitant to duck hearts with only king doubleton of spades.

As it happens, the only card West could afford at trick two was the five of hearts. Suppose that isn't true.  Suppose he has jack-ten-nine-eight of hearts, so that he can play any one of three cards at trick two.  Should he play the ten to show spades, the eight to show clubs, and the nine to show both suits or neither?  I know some pairs would do that, but I don't like it.  As far as I'm concerned, your first signal in a suit you've lead is supposed to clarify your length in that suit.  Most of the time, that's what partner wants to know. Perhaps on this deal he doesn't care about heart length, and suit preference is more important.  But, to my mind, making ad hoc decisions that a card doesn't mean what it usually means is asking for an accident.

At the other table, the auction and lead are the same, but declarer takes a rather strange line. He wins the first heart and returns the three of hearts. West hops up with the nine and shifts to a low spade. East plays the queen, and South wins with the king. Declarer plays another heart. East wins with the king and shifts to the seven of clubs. West takes his king, cashes the ten of hearts, and plays another club. Declarer still isn't ready to attack diamonds. He overtakes the queen of clubs with the ace and cashes the jack, setting up a long club trick for the opponents. Finally, he gets around to playing diamonds. He plays a diamond to the king, but the defense has lots of tricks to cash by this time. Down two. I think declarer must have had something else on his mind while he was playing this hand.

Me: +90
Jack: -100

Score on Board 43: +5 IMPs
Total: +99 IMPs