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 | ♠ Q6 | ||
| ♥ 102 | ♥ Q3 | ||
| ♦ A42 | ♦ J973 | ||
| ♣ 75 | ♣ 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 | ♠ J976 | ||
| ♥ 85 | ♥ J | ||
| ♦ 532 | ♦ KQ9 | ||
| ♣ A106 | ♣ 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