Take Two

It is one of those stories that sounds apocryphal but, I assure you, I was told at first hand. A friend of a friend worked in the editorial office of a famous women's weekly when one week, due to a mishap, they repeated the problem page from over a year ago. They thought they'd got away with it but the telephone rang early and a retired colonel - well, his rank might have been augmented in the telling - pointed it out.

Well, don't call the newspaper, this column does look like last week's. It was the previous one that was at fault - thanks to Suffolk players Peter Gemmell and Norman Less for comments and correspondence. A reminder of the deal from a county match:

EW vul.
Dealer West
  • J10
  • AKJ54
  • K105
  • Q94
  • AK9832
  • 102
  • A42
  • 75
N
W
E
S
  • Q6
  • Q3
  • J973
  • AK1086
  • 754
  • 9876
  • Q86
  • J32
West
North
East
South
1
2
X*
Pass
3
Pass
4
End

On a passive defence, such as the one I essayed, of a top heart and a trump switch, declarer can draw trumps and duck a club, then dispose of his diamond losers on the established clubs. I speculated on how declarer should play on a diamond switch, suggesting he was unlikely to misguess, playing the nine from dummy. I missed two things: first, on the passive start, when West plays towards dummy's clubs North should rise with the queen, giving declarer a choice; duck and play for clubs 3-3, or take a finesse.

Second, and more importantly, four spades can be defeated by force. After a second top heart (for clarity) North should play a club himself. I like the queen as suggested by Mr. Less – it ensures partner cannot do anything unfortunate if West ducks a small card to his knave. West needs to duck a club but the defence forces him to use the suit before he is ready. It is a variation on leading a suit when declarer has only a singleton opposite a source of tricks in dummy.

There was a second diagram last week, sadly it didn't look much like this deal from the 2002 Felixstowe Congress where again West played four spades:

NS vul.
Dealer North
  • 84
  • AKQ93
  • J1064
  • K8
  • AKQ103
  • 85
  • 532
  • A106
N
W
E
S
  • J976
  • J
  • KQ9
  • QJ954
  • 52
  • 107642
  • A87
  • 732

I had recalled some similarity in the diamond suit but I had the defence holding the king-queen. After a top heart, the successful approach was to lead a low diamond. It is very hard to play the nine here, and at least the score card bears me out, the board was flat.

Published Saturday 11.Aug.2007