The exposed hand
We've grown accustomed to transfers these days but in earlier times they were sold to those who spurned artificiality on the grounds that the stronger hand became declarer. On these shores the weak no-trump diffused much of that argument. In reality, it's much better for the more defined hand to be on table; everybody would know what that looked like anyway. In practice 'playing contracts upside down' can be double-edged as deals from the Tollemache qualifier show:
| ♠ KQJ98642 | ♠ A5 | |||
| ♥ none | ♥ AK653 | |||
| ♦ A8 | ♦ Q7 | |||
| ♣ 1065 | ♣ AQ72 | |||
| 4♦* | 5♣ | |||
| 5♦ | 5N* | |||
| 6♠ | ||||
West's four diamonds showed a spade hand better than an immediate game call. It is established practice to control bid opposite these hand-types (where only one suit can be trumps) with the suit underneath the one where a control is missing, making it easy to return the favour. When my partner obliged I almost bid seven straight away; he figured to have something more than the diamond ace and seven spades king-queen-knave. But I thought I'd check his trumps and when he signed off I got cold feet.
I was right in a way, 7♠ is not a great contract but then again, I was wrong. It transpired that 6♠ the strongest response to 5NT - so much for science. Also played by east seven is much better - you might get a heart lead from four - I had forgotten the declarer-ship hadn't been established. Needless to say, the club finesse worked anyhow. There was a different finesse in clubs here:
| EW Vul. Dealer South | ♠ QJ73 | |||
| ♥ J | ||||
| ♦ Q9643 | ||||
| ♣ KJ5 | ||||
| ♠ A1094 | ♠ none | |||
| ♥ 76 | ♥ AKQ108432 | |||
| ♦ AJ10 | ♦ 2 | |||
| ♣ Q984 | ♣ A732 | |||
| ♠ K8652 | ||||
| ♥ 95 | ||||
| ♦ K875 | ||||
| ♣ 106 | ||||
| West | North | East | South | ||||
| Gobert | Notts | Chambers | Notts | ||||
| Pass | |||||||
| 1♣ | Pass | 2♦* | Pass | ||||
| 2♥* | Pass | 3♥ | Pass | ||||
| 3NT | Pass | 4♣ | Pass | ||||
| 4♦ | Pass | 4♠ | Pass | ||||
| 4NT* | Pass | 5NT | Pass | ||||
| 6♥ | End | ||||||
I transferred to hearts, set the suit then tried to draw partner's attention to clubs but I'm not sure how successful the operation was. When west launched into Key-Card Blackwood and I responded off the scale we were settling for six due to uncertainty. North led a spade honour and dummy cannot have been a surprise. However, it made the defence very easy; the only suit in which north-south could take tricks was clubs and accordingly when declarer played towards the closed hand and south played low, there were no strong inferences. South would duck with the king or with his actual holding. West played the queen and went down.
The winning play was the intra-finesse; west inserts the nine and subsequently goes to the diamond ace to run the queen. Does any lead beat six hearts by west? I think I'll leave that as a puzzle…
Published Saturday 9.Dec.2006