Elementary

Pairs, Februari 3, 2004

	A 9 x x A 10 x H x x 10 x x
J x x x x x V 10 8 x x x x		Q 10 x x x x A J 9 x A Q x
Lead: J	K 8 K Q J x x x x x K J x

West Pass Pass Pass

North Pass 2 * 4

East 1 Pass All pass

South 2 3 *

Two spades showed a maximum passed hand with trump support and three clubs showed a non-minimal hand with values in clubs.

And again a contract was reached that was rather high. Somehow the clubs and diamonds have to be played for 1 loser. I was able to make my contract, but only because of a defensive error. See if you can find the mistake.

After I won the spade lead with the king, I played two rounds of trumps, ending in dummy. A successful finesse in clubs made the contract look a little better. I crossed back to dummy with a heart, to play a club towards my king. However, my right opponent jumped up with the club ace and returned a club. Now what? As east had opened the bidding, it seemed that the diamond ace was wrongly placed for me to make the game fulfilling trick in diamonds. Therefore, I continued by cashing two more round of trumps reaching the following ending:

	A 9 x - H x -
x - V 10 8 x		Q 10 x - A 9 -
	8 x x x x -

On the last trump north can spare a spade, but east is squeezed. In practice, east discarded a spade and was then thrown in with a spade to lead upto the diamond king. Just an elementary squeeze, but because of the spade 8 and 9 it is also possible to run the spade 8 in the above diagram.

Of course, the game was made because of a defensive error! After east won the club ace, he should have returned a high spade to cut the communications between dummy and declarer in the spade suit. Now there is no longer any throwin possible.