Added: Thanks to Jim who told me the hand came from Frank Stewart's "My Bridge and Yours", ACBL Bulletin, November 2017.
I added in the above in case someone, as is very likely, doesn't read all of what's below.
After going down I remarked that the hand was interesting. I have looked back on it and that was an understatement. There are several features. We were EW but I will lay out the hands in the usual NS way. N is the dealer. Everyone vul.
Future Dummy:
: K32
: 84
: AKJ97
: K76
1
- Pass - 1
- 3
Pass - Pass - 3
- Pass
4
- Pass - Pass - 6
All Pass.
Future Declarer:
: AQT95
: AQ762
: Q53
: Void
The
are 5-0 but of course declarer doesn't know that. He (in this case I) might try to cope with that possibility but this has to be done in a way that doesn't endanger the hand when the
are 4-1 or 3-2. This leads to some interesting choices.
The opening lead is the
A. It goes A62 and if I ruff, as I did, the hand is going down. Or at least it can be set, as long as the opponents go at it correctly. So, if we are going to allow for a possible 5-0
split, we must refuse to ruff. Ok, but what do we pitch? Gib says either a
or a
but that depends on seeing that the
are, not could be but are, 5-0. Suppose we pitch a
and now Lho, at T2, leads a
. Yes, the hand can still be made, but only by winning the
on the board and leading a small
to the T (or 9). Since at this point we have no reason to believe the T will not be taken by the Q, we will not be doing that. It follows that we have to throw a small
at T1. So we do. And if Lho plays another
we win the K and throw another small
. But Lho knows, after T1 If you win this on the board and lead a small
to your A, you are going down. So says Gib, and I agree. that you have no
in hand and so he is unlikely to help you by playing another
. So let's say he plays a
. Now what? And still you don't know a
finesse will work, so you are not going to lead a small
to the T. It follows that the
have to be started by leading the K from the board, at least if we are going to play to cope with a possible 5-0. And in that case we might as well win the
switch in hand.
Summary:
might be 5-0 but until we know that they are we are not finessing the T. So we start by pitching a
at T1, we win the
in, and now, if we are to cope with 5-0 we have to start with a small
toward the K . Could this go wrong? Well, maybe. Suppose that instead of showing out Lho follows to the
. You go up with the K and lead another
, Rho follows. Now we do not yet know where the Q so we go up. Suppose Lho opponent now shows out. Now it is very good that we still have two
in hand. We use one to go back to the board, we finesse in
, draw trump, use our last
to get back to the board. Whew. Except of course if
were 4-1, when you go back to the board, or try to, Rho ruffs.
This is a very tricky hand. Not only do you have to plan out an exact sequence at T1, starting with the pitch rather than the ruff and pitching the
rather than the
, you still are not out of the woods because after the switch to the
there is a danger of a ruff. The sequence that works when
are 5-0 fails if Rho holds four
and one
. At least it fails unless we take a very unsafe finesse.
As mentioned, a very interesting hand.