Counting the hand, thinking about where the outstanding honours and what Opps' distribution is are all important elements of good Declarer play. Watching
spot cards, however, can be just as important. Take this hand, which I played with Eszter5 today. If some of the bids look a little weird, remember we're playing OCP:
Dealer North, EW Game. You are South
South AKQ3
A86
QJ75
K5
BiddingNorth East South WestNo No 1
(1) 1
(2)X
(3) 1NT X
(4) No
2
No 2NT
(5) No
3
(6) No 3NT
(7) All Pass
(1) 16+ any shape, not 16-23 4441
(2) Natural
(3) 5-7 any shape
(4) 100% Penalty
(5) Lebensohl, forcing 3
(6) Forced
(7) To play, with Diamond cover
West leads the Ace of Diamonds and Partner goes down with
North (Dummy) 842
KJ105
42
Q843
A
led
South AKQ3
A86
QJ75
K5
East plays the
10 on trick 1 and West switches to a small Heart. Do you play West for the 9 or the Queen? Not much to choose given that you have the 865 between the 2 hands. I played the 10 and took East's Queen with my Ace. How do you plan the play from here?
Spades
or Hearts 3-3 will give you 9 tricks (7 cards in the Majors and one in each Minor), but you don't really want to open up either Minor any further at this stage.
I started out on the Spades, more to find out about the opposing distribution more than anything else. If West has 9 cards in the red suits, they're not very likely to have 3 Spades. West showed out on the 2nd round (discarding the 3
) so I held onto my Q
and ran the 8!H (If West had covered, I would find a way back to hand and run the 6
on the 3rd round). Actually, in retrospect, this is a good reason for playing the 5
from Dummy at trick 1 in that even if East's 9 forces your Ace, it's easier to finesse a second and 3rd time with KJ10 in Dummy. Anyway, West didn't cover the 8, which won the trick (East playing the 3), so I cleared the Hearts (East discarding the 6
and 9
, and you chuck the 3
on the last Heart).
Have you been watching the spot cards?
West had overcalled 1
, led the Ace, and East played the 10 at trick 1 and subsequently discarded the 9 on the last Heart. This means that West started with AK863 and it's totally safe for me to exit from Dummy with a Diamond to the Jack (East discarded the Jack of Spades). West won and was faced with the choice of opening up the Clubs for me (great for me if they have the Ace, as was likely) or leading a Diamond back into my Q7 from 86. They chose the latter (East discarding another Spade). Now it was a simple matter to lead a small Club towards the Queen. Surprisingly East won the Ace, but had to concede the rest to me for +430.
Even if West declines to take their top Diamond when exit from table with a Diamond (which is probably the expert play, I'm still home for 9 tricks because I've now won 7 and just need to concede a trick to the Ace of Clubs. East has no red cards and West no Majors so it really doesn't matter who wins the Ace of Clubs.
Perhaps surprisingly, making an overtrick in 3NT gave a decent score of 7½ IMPs. Nobody else in 3NT made 10 tricks, and over half of the field were going off in 3NT and even 2 Pairs going off in 2NT. Only 4 other Pairs bid and made 3NT.