A Deal about…..

Does it only happen to you?  Everyone else gets a friendly lead but against you, they find the killer lead! Really? What then do you make of their lead, your luck, here?

You open a 15-17 1NT and answer Stayman. Partner invites game. You are mid-range but have a decent looking 5-card suit and with great confidence bid game. The lead is ♠︎4 (4th highest leads). What’s your plan to come to at least 9 tricks?

There is one thing certain here. You have been blessed with a favourable lead. Imagine they had led a club! Don’t waste this piece of good fortune. What are you going to play to trick 1?

Say we let the lead run round to our ♠︎J. We would probably need to get to dummy to play diamonds. Where would we like the ♦︎A to be? The answer is probably with West as East may well find a switch away from spades, though of course we might then be able to play diamonds for no further losers.  If we had three spade, two even three heart tricks and ♣︎A, we would still need at least 2 diamond tricks to come to 9. In a strange way, getting that third spade trick straightaway may be not to our advantage. We need to avoid that switch if we can.

So, why not play a top spade from dummy at trick 1 and test that diamond suit? Low to the king? It would be a good West defender who would duck that holding ♦︎A. If ♦︎K scored, we would then have to take a view of what to play next. Oh, did we notice what East played to trick 1? Too right we did!

You were already streets ahead of those poor South players who had heard East open 3♣︎.  They had bid a reasonable 3NT and West had led their partner’s suit. It was damage control time for them.

Sure it was unlucky that East produced that ♠︎Q but this deal was more about diamonds, not on scoring a third spade trick. Guess which card East played when they scored their black queen at trick 1. Another black queen, of course! Now, strangely, that did not always spell disaster. There was more than one West who did not jettison their ♣︎K on the second round of clubs after South ducked the ♣︎Q. Failure to do so saw 3NT roll home to very relieved South players.

If West did win ♦︎A at trick 1, they could see that continuing spades was not that good an idea. Potentially, that gives declarer 4 spade tricks though they would find it hard to unravel them. They may well find the club switch which puts huge pressure on declarer finding the ♦︎J. However, they may not find that switch. Your clubs may be stronger and they may try a heart switch.

If they do switch to a low club, there is no certain way to play diamonds though maybe a good defender only wins ♦︎A when they hold ♦︎AJ doubleton. More chances to go wrong then. You would wish you had started with a diamond to ♦︎9. However, you might be one of the lucky ones who did not get the club switch. Now, it does not matter what happens in the diamond suit. Your contract is secure.

There were few successes in 3NT, only 5 and a multitude of pairs going down, by up to 3 tricks for those who ducked the opening spade lead. Credit also to Karen Harris who found a take-out double of 3♣︎ even though she did not have a 4-card major. Her partner, John Buckleton, offered her a choice of majors with 4♣︎ and then after Karen bid 4♦︎ made the great decision to play in his weaker major. 4♥︎ was the only legitimately making game.

John did very well after East had led  their spade. Trumps were drawn in 3 quick relieved rounds and John played a diamond to ♦︎K which was ducked. John guessed right in exiting with a low diamond, a fine reward for good bidding.

For the majority, I wonder if they realised how lucky they were not to get that club lead at trick 1. It looks like many did not take advantage of their good fortune.

Richard Solomon