Jeff Lehman

When you really need to go, badly …

A club game hand presented an opportunity to induce partner to switch suits so as to set a 1NT contract.

Playing weak notrumps (where a strong notrump hand is typically opened 1 of a suit and then 1NT is rebid over partner’s one level response), I opened 1 in the West chair and heard the bidding close with North’s 1NT overcall.  Partner East led the 3, declarer called for the 2 from dummy South.  This is what I saw:

Dealer: 12-W

Vul: NS

North

West

AQ8

KJ53

AQJ7

62

East

(3)

South

K52

Q7

94(2)

JT953

West North East South
1 1NT All pass

What is your defensive plan?

Partner is marked with 0-2 HCP.  Yet, I want him to be on lead so that he can play a major suit through dummy.  Seemingly his only potential entry cards are the Q and the T.

I began by playing the Q at Trick One, the best I could do to discourage a diamond return should partner gain entry.  Declarer North won the king, and led one major himself, passing the J.  I won the Q and returned the 7.  Partner won the T.  At this point, had partner returned a heart, we will set 1NT, by multiple tricks.  Admittedly, that is not an easy play, but the whole hand was:

Dealer: 12-W

Vul: NS

North

JT963

A96

K86

AK

West

AQ8

KJ53

AQJ7

62

East

74

T842

T53

Q874

South

K52

Q7

942

JT953

With apologies for the bathroom-like sound of the title of this blog, I really needed partner to go (on lead and to switch to hearts)!

Addendum: my partner on this hand has since pointed out that I could have defended so as to have made the heart return easier to find.  When I am in with the Q, if I first cash the DJ before leading a small diamond to partner’s DT, partner, having no more diamonds, must switch suits and is thus more likely to find the winning heart switch.  “Building a fence around partner” is a high level bridge skill, and, without regard to whether partner should have returned a diamond on the at-the-table defense,  I would have been well-advised to have adopted the defense pointed out by partner.


1 Comment

RobinSeptember 19th, 2011 at 2:32 am

Given that you are gambling on partner having started with DTxx rather than DTxxx, or Dxxx(x), cashing a high diamond first is a no-lose play and should have been fairly clear (in my humble hindsight-aided opinion). OTOH, partner should be able to work out that a shift is required, given the curious incident of the diamond Ace. “Ah, but the diamond ace had not yet been played,” you say. “That was the curious incident,” I reply.

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