Playing for pride as well
When an opponent forsakes a legitimate line of play in favour of deception it is doubly important to do the right thing. Obviously you want to make your contract or defeat theirs but there are psychological points at stake as well. It is one thing to fail due to an unfortunate lie of the cards, slightly harder to take if someone finds a good technical play against you but if you fall into a trap, well…
Have a look at this from the defender's point of view, North;
- 75
- 9876
- Q9
- AK842
- QJ6
- AK5
- K84
- Q1065
Love All
Double was 'take-out' but things start poorly when partner's opening lead of a top spade is ruffed by East. Declarer then draws two rounds of trumps, partner discarding a spade on the second. He crosses to the heart ace and leads the queen of spades on which he pitches the seven of clubs. Partner leads the club knave, covered in dummy, your king holds the trick. The only missing club is the nine. What now?
It looks very depressing. East appears to be 0-4-7-2 and although he has thrown you in to start the heart suit, partner can have at best Qx and declarer's J10xx is going to be good. Could he be 0-3-7-3? Well that would mean he had the contract for the taking simply by leading up to the club ten – finessing for the knave. Mind you, your double was somewhat light, perhaps he is expecting you to hold that card. One worrying thing about this layout is that partner failed to lead his singleton club for some reason. But the choice is still there; exit with a heart or risk getting the ace of clubs ruffed away
This decision is made much easier by the fact that the first analysis showed you cannot defeat the contract when partner started with only two hearts – however good his hearts are, they'll not be good enough. So fighting the fear of getting your club ace ruffed away, you should lead it. And from the preamble, you can guess that was the right thing to do –declarer started with Qxx of hearts and 97x of clubs. Partner didn't lead his singleton because he's not Garozzo - who said you should always think of reasons not to lead a singleton and then read it anyway. At the table East played quickly and fluidly, as you must if you are hoping to bring about a deception, and for my money, his line wasn't that bad.
Published Saturday 13.Jan.2001