A Nice Solution

[OliverC]

I got roped into a Teams Match yesterday with an expert partner and Opps. The general standard of the bidding and play was spotty, however. My Partner got nowhere near a decent line on this Board, for example:

You are South (seats rotated for convenience), NS Game, Dealer West.

Bidding
West       North        East        South
No           No             1          1
No           2 ⁽¹⁾       3          4
All Pass

⁽¹⁾ Unassuming Cue Bid

West leads the 7 of Hearts

North
  Q654
  Q1086
  52
  AQ3

South
  AK108732
  5
  AJ
  542

How do you assess your chances? It's clear from the bidding that almost all of the outstanding strength is held by East. Your whole effort, therefore, should be on finding some way to keep West from gaining the lead (to fire a Club through Dummy's AQx) and to endplay East. The Opening lead looks like a singleton or doubleton, so provisionally we can place East with AKJ9xx(x), at least one of the Diamond honours and probably the King of Clubs.

You cover the opening lead with the 8 and South wins the trick with the 9. The King of Hearts follows. How do you play?

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My Partner chose an imaginative but losing line. He ruffed trick 2 with the Ace, drew one round of trumps by leading the 7 to Dummy's Queen (both Opps follow), then played a Diamond to his Ace, the 2 of trumps back to Dummy's 4, the 3 of trumps across to Dummy, and then the Queen of Hearts, covered by East on which he discarded the Jack of Diamonds. East now led the Queen of Diamonds and Declarer discarded a small Club, but West overtook with the King and fired the Club through.

There is a cast-iron route for 10 tricks here, based solely on the premise that East is likely to have started with AKJ9xx(x). On trick 2 (East leading the King of Hearts, Declarer needs to discard his Jack of Diamonds, to ensure that West can never gain the lead in that suit. East is now effectively forced to switch to a trump, if they have one, or Diamonds.

Suppose East switches to a Diamond (It doesn't really matter what they switch to). Declarer wins their Ace, draws the round of trumps by leading a middle trump to Dummy's Queen (carefully preserving the 2 and 3 in their hand). Now they ruff Dummy's losing Diamond, cross back in trumps, ruff a Heart, cross back in trumps and lead Dummy's last Heart and discard a Club. You still have a trump in both hands, have eliminated both red suits, and East is forced to win this trick and either lead a Club towards Dummy's AQx or give you a ruff-and-discard.

Your action at trick 2 might seem a little double-dummy'ish and fanciful, but you should realise right at the start that you cannot wholly predict or control who might win a second round of Diamonds, but you can be absolutely certain who will win a 4th round of Hearts if you don't ruff it.

[kenberg]

I confess I did not see this line. It is certainly the best shot. Not quite cast iron though. Give E a seven card suit, in which case the opening lead was a stiff. Assume the recommended line:  Opening lead goes to the 9 as it did. Now a high heart is played, declarer pitching the J.  If W is up for it, he ruffs his partner's A and shifts to a .

But never mind.  Assuming that the honors are split, that the K is offside, and that W is up for this ruff and switch tactic, nothing works. Moreover, even when the contract can be defeated by playing as described above, often the winning play would not occur to W.  E might up the chances by leading the K instead of the A at T2.  Actually, when W sees the dummy he pretty much "knows" that E has the K in that if declarer holds it then just how do they plan on beating this? Maybe not conclusive.

Pitching the J at T2 is clearly right. Absent the remote scenario I came up with, it is indeed iron clad.

Added: One more thing. After the pitch of the J, E does not need to switch suits, but again this does not matter. E can continue with a small .  Declarer cannot pitch a since W will ruff and play a .  But no matter. S ruffs with the A. Slight care is needed if trumps are 2-0. After ruffing the with the A, cash the   K.  If everyone follows, it's fine, but if not then I think S must cash the A. Presumably this will not be ruffed, are not 9-0. Then 8 to the Q, ruff a with the T, 2 to the  4, $!H Q pitching a , E is in and has no play.

[OliverC]

I concede that, Ken, but there's nothing you can do about it. It's more likely that the 7 is a doubleton and that West has one of the Diamonds honours. In any case, if East has both Diamonds honours then there's a decent chance the King of Clubs might be onside anyway. You're not really giving much up by discarding the Jack of Diamonds at trick 2, if only because few Wests would come up with diagnosing the hand and the reasons for Declarer's play in the space of 1½ tricks to make that killing play. Declarer can see the problem, but it would be incredibly sharp for West to see it that quickly.

[kenberg]

You did say that they were experts 

But yes, I agree. Fundamentally, the J is the right play because it has extremely good chances. The fact the a bad lie and a clever defense could defeat it does not stop it from being the right play.

[OliverC]

I did indeed. My point still stands. It's very difficult, even a World Class Player, to diagnose that it's essential to ruff Partner's 2nd (winning) Heart, especially given that, if Partner started with AKJ9xxx, you know they can tell you have a singleton and can just as easily return a small Heart for you to ruff if they wanted a Club switch.