Dubious Logic

Cherish, Perish

I promised another hand from the Eastern Counties match against Essex where the deals were wild and woolly. But perhaps a touch too wild. That's less a comment on what can appear in a family newspaper, more to do with the space required for explanation. Perhaps their time will come, today, however, you'll have to consider something a little more technical:

As South I led a top club against East's heart game, partner encouraged and I took stock. Declarer appeared to have the other top hearts, the spade ace and the probably the diamond queen for his jump to the three level. It seemed that we could beat him if he had a hand like:

In the first instance I needed to put partner in to lead a diamond, in the second to lead spade. In fact, what I wanted was a lead through declarer's doubleton. How would the poor soul work that out? In an attempt to cherish him and keep spades in the picture, I advanced the club nine. West won the queen and thought and thought. Eventually he produced a spade, alas, it was not a success:

Declarer had no problem in wrapping up ten tricks, the established spade providing a discard for the losing diamond. Aghh! North even had the diamond queen and I could have played the suit but didn't – why? Well that club nine I chose to his queen at trick two made me appear for all the world like a man who demanded a spade return; ♠KJ53 ♥A ♦762 ♣AK953 perhaps – now a diamond would be fatal.

All that cherishing, I knew it would come to no good. I should have just played the middle club spot at trick two and let partner make his own mistakes – as least he would be making the last mistake.

Published Saturday 24.Sep.2005