In the second round match against defending
champions France I hold a good hand:
A Q 10 9 4, A J 4, A 10 6, A K. After three
passes I open two clubs, artificial strong, and my partner responses two
diamonds, waiting. Now I have two options, either two spades or two no-trumps.
I prefer to bid two no-trumps, showing 22-24 hcp balanced, because my partner
can ask five card majors if he wants to. Vesa bids next four no-trumps, natural
and inviting. I have minimum points for my bid, but with the fifth spade and
two tens I have to go on. So, I bid six spades, proposing the final contract,
and this is passed round. Jerome Rombaut leads the seven of spades.
After the spade lead I don´t have to worry
about potential trump loser, but I have one loser in each of the red suits. The
straightforward line would be drawing out the trumps and testing the diamonds.
If they are not 3-3, I could take the heart finesse. So, I take three rounds of
trumps, ending dummy. I play a small diamond to my ten, Rombaut wins with the
Jack and continues with the queen. I play the third round and when both
opponents are following, I can claim my contract.
If East had four diamonds (in which case he
would play back a club instead of a diamond), I could simply trust on a heart
finesse, or I could play for a squeeze. If East had four diamonds and the Queen
of hearts, all I have to do is to finish my black suits. But if West would be
alone to guard the clubs, I didn´t have to care who has the Queen of hearts. In
the four card ending I have the last spade and A J 4 of hearts. Dummy´s last
cards are K 7 of hearts, one diamond and one club. When I play the last trump,
East has to discard a heart, dummy a diamond, and then it´s West´s turn to be
squeezed.
Without any squeezes we score 1430 and I´m
expecting either push or 13 IMP win, depending if our opponents reach the slam
at the other table. But it turns out to be that we win 2 IMPs on the board. Lionel
Sebbane and Paul Seguineau had a misunderstanding in the bidding and the final
contract was six diamonds. In this slam you don´t have to think about any
squeeze or finesse possibilities. Either the opponent´s diamonds are 3-3 or you
go down! Those lucky bastards…
Against Ireland in round number 26:
My red suit combinations were suggesting,
that partner should be declaring, if our final contract is no-trumps. However,
if I would open one spade, it might not be easy to describe my hand in
continuation. John Carroll´s two hearts
was natural and his opening lead the six of clubs was fourth best. Tommy Garvey
is following with the Queen. Take it over from here.
After the club lead I see seven top tricks
and I can easily establish the two missing tricks from the spade suit. Only if East
has something like Q10xx in spades, I could establish only one extra trick from
this suit. But the lead is strongly suggesting, that East has a two suited hand
with hearts and clubs, so if someone is long in spades, that´s Garvey. But if I
attack the spade suit first, I might lose trick to the Queen of spades and
defence might continue with four rounds of clubs for one down. Any ideas?
I decided to continue with clubs to the
second trick. Of course, I would have something to explain to my teammates, if
East made his opening lead from a six-card suit! Luckily West is following to
second round of clubs and I´m not down yet. The idea of playing clubs is to see
how the suit is divided between the opponents. If they are 4-3, I can´t fail to
make my contract. If they are 5-2, Carroll might not take all his club tricks
being afraid to rectify a squeeze against his partner. The clubs are 5-2,
Carroll take two more rounds, then takes a long pause but finally plays the
fifth round as well. Garvey discards three diamonds and I give up one diamond
from the dummy. From my hand I discard one spade, one heart and one diamond.
East plays next the six of diamonds. Where are we now?
West´s three diamond discards are telling,
that he had originally six cards in that suit. I´ve lost already four tricks,
so I can´t afford to make a wrong view in the spade suit. I take a second round
of rounds and East´s six was singleton, as expected. If East had 2-5-1-5, I
just have to make right guess in spades. But if he had 1-6-1-5, the contract is
assured. My next move is to take two rounds of hearts to confirm the exact
distribution. If East has 1-6-1-5, West is squeezed on the second round of
hearts. He has to keep his master diamond and therefore he has to discard one
spade. Then I can continue with the King of spades and take the marked finesse
against West. But unfortunately, West is following to the two rounds of hearts,
so I know that East had 2-5-1-5 and now I have to make the right guess in
spades. Would you play for the finesse or the drop?
I continued with the spade King and small
to the Jack, being quite confident that the finesse will be right. Remember the
discards of Garvey. If he had 10xx, xx, QJ10xxx, Qx, he wouldn´t discard three
diamonds, because declarer might have AJxx, Axx, Axxx, Kx. The whole hand:
Unfortunately, the lead against the same
contract is the Jack of clubs at the other table and declarer´s worries were
over.
Written by Kauko
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