Throw-ins are sometimes easy to spot and execute, and you can be fairly certain of the lie of the cards. Other times it is much harder. I was the Dummy on this really nice piece of Declarer play in a recent Teams Match which had me paired up with ZsK, a turkish gentlemen, who showed his metal on this hand against good defence and deceptive carding by Opps:
Game All, Dealer SouthSouth (Dummy) 10863
J953
2
AQ106
North AKJ754
K62
7
K83
BiddingSouth West North EastNo No 1
2
3
(1) 4
X No
No 5
No No
5
All Pass
I must confess, Declarer's shortage in Diamonds was a disappointment when my hand went down as Dummy, as I was expecting more Diamonds and fewer cards in the round suits. ZsK said after that he in turn was expecting at least 2 small Diamonds in my hand and maybe a Heart shortage. East led the Ace of Diamonds (West playing the 10 to ask for a
switch, which duly came when East switched to a small Heart at trick 2.
Declarer tried the
9 from Dummy and West expertly inserted the 10. In with the
King, Declarer ran 4 rounds of trumps, then the Ace King of Clubs, then his last 2 trumps. East had 2 Spades and then discarded Diamonds and West discarded Diamonds all the way after following to 1 trump.
Everyone followed to the AK of Clubs, East with the 2 then the 9, and West with the 4 and 5. On the last two Spades, East threw the 6 and Queen of Diamonds, while West discarded the
King and then the
Ace. Dummy threw 2 small Hearts. This was the end position:
South (Dummy) -
J
-
Q10
North -
62
-
8
This was the end position after the last Spade was played. Most people would play a Club at this point, but I feel that is ignoring part of the bidding: West's 4
bid must be showing a reasonable hand, at this vulnerability. East has already shown up with
AQ and the
Queen, and East with 5 Diamonds to the King, a singleton Spade and the Ace and 10 of Hearts. The question is (1) Where are the
Queen and where is the Jack of Diamonds (which was the last Diamond that hadn't been played) and (2) Are the Clubs 3-3 or 4-2?
West was trying to make Declarer believe he had started with
A10x,
KJ1098x, and
Jxx, but
crucially, West had not discarded a
small Heart at any stage, only the
Ace on the very last Spade. If West really started with A10x in Hearts, they would not have inserted the 10 at trick 2, but would have taken the Ace and returned a Heart in case Partner had led from
Kxx.
Declarer worked this out and at trick 11 he exited with a Heart to Dummy's Jack. West won the Queen but now had to lead a Club into Dummy's Q10. Bravo!
I'd like to say that this earned a worthy game swing, but although the contract was the identical at the other table, Declarer was not remotely tested, since East's opening lead was the
9, which set up 4 Club tricks for Declarer by simply covering with the 10 in Dummy. With the
AQ10 onside, they couldn't go wrong thereafter and so it was a push.