Careful Sleuthing Needed by Larry Klimko lklimko@ispwest.com A hand came up at the Bridge Center recently which illustrates beautifully the concept of bridge thinking. Here it is, Board 11 from Sunday (4-2-06) rotated 180 degrees for convenience. Dealer: North North Vul: none ----- 10 9 4 10 6 5 8 2 Q J 10 4 2 West East ---- ---- K 7 5 3 2 J K 4 A 9 8 3 2 K 6 3 Q 10 9 7 5 4 8 7 3 9 South ----- A Q 8 6 Q J 7 A J A K 6 5 The traveller 3NTS +5 460 2@3NTS +4 430 3NTS +3 400 2NTS +2 120 I had an easy time of it in 3NT. I had opened 2NT and partner put me in game on the basis of her club suit, expecting it to be a source of tricks. The spade three lead came around to the jack and my queen. I could count only eight tricks, and so needed to set up a heart trick. I led the heart queen. West took the king and continued with a spade, the nine winning in dummy. Now I had nine tricks and, with all the suits stopped, I could afford to work on a tenth. So, low heart from dummy to the jack, which held. I now had ten tricks and, with nothing more to set up, took the clubs, pitching my heart spot. With four tricks to go I had two aces to cash yet. But East had pitched all of his hearts except the ace, so it couldn't hurt to lose a heart. I led the heart from the board to East's ace, pitching the diamond jack. West, down to K x in spades and diamonds, mistakenly pitched his spade spot. A diamond was led back to my ace, the spade king cleared the suit and the spade eight became a second overtrick for a top score. Of course, West should have blanked his diamond king in the end and saved his spade spot. He had seen his partner show out in spades and he should have been watching declarer's pitches, so he could have known to save the spade spot to protect his king. But that's not the point of this hand. The lesson here is much deeper. A look at all of the cards shows that 3NTS could have been defeated if West had shifted to a diamond when he was in with the heart king at trick two. Could he have known this? Yes! Some careful sleuthing was needed, the kind of thinking that experienced bridge players engage in. West must count declarer's points. First of all, West asks hmself why declarer isn't working on clubs after winning the spade queen. That's his best source of tricks. Why not? Because the club suit is already running. Declarer must be holding the club ace and king. That's 7 points for declarer. And spades? If East held the ace, he would have gone up with it on Trick One, so declarer held the spade ace and queen. That's 6 more points for declarer. Total, 13. When declarer leads the heart queen, he must be holding the jack, but not the ace. With the ace he would have gone to the dummy and finessed. So that's 3 points in hearts. Total, 16. Declarer's 2NT opening showed 20 or 21 points, so he must be holding 4 or 5 points in diamonds. In particular, declarer cannot be holding both the ace and queen of diamonds. In fact, declarer must be holding the ace for his 2NT opening. So, who has the queen? The only player left is partner, East. So West can see that a diamond shift would be productive for the defense. The diamond three to the queen and declarer is nailed! Declarer's best chance to make the contract is to win the ace (and hope that the opponents do not realize their fortunate position in diamonds) and lead another heart. East wins the heart ace and the defense takes five more diamond tricks for a total of seven tricks. Down three. Actually, this hand illustrates one of the challanges of matchpoint duplicate. After the diamond shift, declarer, seeing his predicament, might decide to cash out for down one in order to get a better matchpoint score. No matter. The defense has set the notrump contract.