This was an interesting and illustrative hand: At Love All, with no opposition bidding after you have shown Hearts and Partner has shown Spades, you end up the Declarer in 3NT.
North (Dummy)
AQJ73
AJ
AK
Q1094
South (You) 108
K10954
J64
A53
LHO leads the
10. Dummy's King takes the trick, East contributing the 3. How do you plan the play?
(1) Count your tricks: A
, AK
, AK
and the A
leaves you needing to find 3 tricks from somewhere.
(2) Plan: Crossing to hand and running the
10 will setup the Spades as long as East doesn't have
K97xx. The problem is that if you use the K
or the
Ace to come to your hand you're either blocking the Hearts or potentially leaving an easy trick (or 2) for Opps in Clubs. The other problem was that if East did have 5 Spades to the King and my 10 lost to their King, they'd clear the Diamonds and I'd have to get the Hearts right (and find a lucky lie) to make 9 tricks before they ran their Diamonds. What, then?
I decided that if I was guarding against
Kxxxx in the East hand, the best line was a
small Spade from Dummy at trick 2. East played low and my 10 held the trick. Having "stolen" a Spade trick, I could now turn my attention to the Hearts. I crossed to the Ace and ran the Jack. Once again, I didn't even mind if West showed out at this point. If they did, I simply switch back to the Spades and lead the Queen or Jack. I didn't even mind of West won this trick with the doubleton Queen of Hearts, because now the Hearts would be 4-2.
Either way I'm absolute assured of the 9 tricks I need for my contract. In practice West did win the Queen (and yes it was a doubleton), but I didn't care: I had 2 Spades, 4 Hearts, 2 Diamonds and the Ace of Clubs, regardless of the distribution of any of the suits.
Several Declarers were going off in 3NT. I'm not entirely sure how, because the Spades were 3-3 and if I risk East having
Qxxxx and just play off the
AK, I drop West's Queen and come out with 12 tricks. Even the
King is onside with West and the Clubs 3-3.
My play at trick 2 is a variation on "Morton's Fork". If East has the
King they're stuck: If they rise with it, I'm assured of 4 Spade tricks (and my contract) If they don't, my 10 wiil win the trick and I can abandon the Spades (for the time being, anyway) and turn my attention to hearts, because now I only need 2 additional tricks, having stolen one in Spades. If West wins the
King, I am still fine as long as the Spades are no worse than 4-2.
Note: It's right to try the Spades
first, because Spades will
always give me the 3 tricks I need if the Spades are no worse than 4-2 or in any case where East has the King (Morton's Fork, as above). If I try the Hearts first and have to lose a trick to the Queen, Hearts will only generate
two of the 3 additional tricks I need for my contract.
