Deceptive Twist

Pairs, Februari 4, 2004

	A Q 4 J 6 5 A K Q 3 8 6 5
Lead: Q	9 6 3 K Q 10 7 2 8 2 A 9 2

West Pass Pass Pass Pass

North 1 1NT 3 Pass

East Pass Pass Pass Pass

South 1 2NT 4

You receive the lead of the club queen. East encourages, and you decide to duck. West continues with the club jack and this time you win the ace. You can always throw a losing spade on the diamonds so you continue with the hearth king to easts ace. East cashes the club king, on which west throws a diamond. After some thought east continues with a fourth round of club. What now?

First the contract seemed to hinge on the finesse over the spade king. The fourth round of clubs, however, allows you to throw a losing spade and ruff in dummy. After pulling trumps, the remaining spade loser can be thrown on the diamonds. The club return stinks however. Why did east return a club? Note that trumping in dummy leaves only the heart jack. Returning to hand can therefore only be done by overtaking the heart jack (not with a diamond ruff, because west will throw another diamond on the fourth round of clubs). This is no problem unless trumps are 4-1. The club return indicates that a 4-1 trump division is very probable. Also with the king of spades, east can defend passively, because he can wait for the setting trick.

Therefore the best line seems to trump in hand, pull trumps and finally take the spade finesse. The following deal shows that this is the only winning line:

	A Q 4 J 6 5 A K Q 3 8 6 5
K 10 8 2 9 8 4 3 10 7 4 Q J		J 7 5 A J 9 6 5 K 10 7 4 2
	9 6 3 K Q 10 7 2 8 2 A 9 2

A nice and instructive hand from a team scoring perspective. However from a matchpoint angle the deal offers a nice deception. Suppose that you trump in hand and pull four rounds of trumps. If east was smart/foolish enough to try the same play with the spade king, the ending could also be:

	A Q - A K Q -
J 8 2 - 10 7 -		K - J 9 6 10
	9 6 3 - 8 2 -

A spade finesse at this point would result in two down!!!