City and Canada Bay – Thursday Morning 19th December 2024.
This will be the last column for 2024 as there is no session on Thursday 26th December. I hope everyone has a good break.
Last week I focussed mainly on defence. This week I’ll consider declarer play – on board 5. Many pairs were in the same contract – 3NT, mostly by South on ♣Q lead. The majority of declarers went off but it was quite possible to make. Let’s have a look at what line of play gives the best chance.
First the auction though. Some Norths may have chosen to open 1♦ with their 11 count. If they did the auction is likely to have been uncontested 1♦ – 1♠ – 1NT – 3NT. If North chooses to pass then South will open 1NT and the auction is then likely to be 1NT – 2♣ – 2♠ – 3NT (North initially looking for a heart fit but, on hearing the 2S response, knowing partner doesn’t have hearts will then play 3NT).
When South is declarer West has a pretty standard ♣Q lead – top of a sequence is one of the best leads in bridge, not only is it safe but it starts setting up tricks for the defence too. If North is declarer East’s lead isn’t so clear cut. But there’s actually a good case for him to consider a club as well. For several reasons:
- Diamonds have been bid on his right
- Spades have been bid on his left
- (Same point as mentioned last week). His hand is extremely weak so he is better off trying to find partner’s suit as he is more likely to have later entries to it
So how should declarer play on a club lead? He should, as usual, start by counting his certain tricks and then consider where to go for more. He has 1 spade, 4 diamonds and 2 clubs on top and he has ♥KQ so could set up another trick there quite quickly. But that will only be 8 tricks and as soon as the defence win their ♥A they will set their club winners up. So 1 extra trick isn’t enough – declarer needs 2 more tricks to reach 9. Where could they come from? It can only be the majors.
It is actually possible to get 2 more tricks out of the spade suit on this layout but it’s not particularly likely or clear cut what to do. See advanced section for more. More promising is hearts.
The answer is actually just a finesse – but not perhaps one that looks immediately like a standard finesse. It’s worth remembering that a finesse isn’t always leading up towards AQ and hoping the K is onside. It’s basically any time where you hope one particular card is in one particular hand.
So on this hand declarer should simply lead a heart from North to his 10 which is hoping the ♥J is with East. When it is this means West is forced to win ♥A and that gives both ♥Q and ♥K tricks. Even though a further top card (♥A) still has to be lost, that doesn’t stop it being a finesse (against ♥J).
Note it would be good general technique to duck the original ♣Q lead and then win the next one. Why? Because you may well have to lose the lead twice and entries may be split between the defenders’ hands. If you can knock West’s entry out first then the defence won’t be able to get the suit going. See advanced section for more details.
Key points to note
Top of a sequence leads are usually the best in bridge – combining attack to set up tricks with safety (i.e. low chance of giving away a trick).
Finesses come in all sorts of varieties – but are all basically just leading through a hand hoping it has a particular card.
As declarer always stop and count tricks – then work out where you can go to get more tricks. And, most important, which option(s) do you have TIME to do? Setting up one trick may not be enough if the defence are one lead away from setting their own suit up. So you may need to consider a slightly inferior line in another suit but which gives you a genuine chance to make.
Even holding 2 stoppers in a suit, it’s frequently right for declarer to duck the 1st round and preserve both stoppers. This can prevent the defence getting their suit going.
More advanced
No trump play, like any declarer play, is a question of counting certain tricks and then seeing where best to go for the extra tricks you need. Here the heart finesse is a fairly simple way of scoring both the honours which, together with other top cards, will make 9.
Declarer of course might need to be a bit careful with entries. The defence will knock out North’s ♣A pretty quickly so he needs to play a heart at that point and not cash all his diamond winners first. Why? Because he needs the ♦A as an entry back to North to cash the ♥Q later (after he has unblocked ♥K in the South hand).
I said spades could also work on this hand. More advanced players would find it a good exercise to study the positions and try to work out which layouts in the suit are possible to play for 1 loser.
On this hand what declarer would need to do is lead a low spade towards North. If West takes the ♠K, then on the next round declarer can lead the ♠J from North which pins West’s remaining ♠10. Alternatively if West ducks, then the ♠J loses to East’s ♠Q. Then on the next round declarer can drop West’s ♠K and make all the rest of the suit.
Another position in spades that could be picked up for one loser is West holding 10x and East holding KQxx. Again declarer starts with a low spade towards North and, unless he sees a high card, inserts the ♠8 hoping West has ♠10 so this will force one of the top honours from East. Then on the next round declarer again runs the ♠J from North to finesse against East’s other top honour whilst also pinning West’s ♠10. This fairly rare position is known as an “intra-finesse”. Although there are several higher cards outstanding, you are still finessing against a mid-size card – in order to then set up a regular finesse.
Another common scenario is leading up to AJ9xx from, say, xx. You insert the 9 hoping that LHO started with H10x(x) – effectively taking a finesse against the 10 (of course this means a good defender holding KQx onside should play low smoothly and hope declarer has read the book saying the 9 is the best play!)
The big problem with any of these spade positions is they require very specific card layouts to work. Which makes each of them inherently unlikely. What’s more declarer often has to read the position on the 2nd round – he may have hit the right line initially but not actually realise. Leading towards the ♥10 is just a simple 50:50 finesse against the ♥J – and that’s much the best chance on this hand.
I said it’s good general technique to duck the first club. It doesn’t make any real difference on this hand but there are several positions where this can gain. One is if clubs are 6-2. Now after winning the 2nd club, the defence still have one more club stop to knock out. If they each have one entry, they can’t now achieve that (West could set the suit up, but then can’t get back in to cash them, East won’t have any more clubs to be able to set the suit up). Even when clubs are 5-3, if you can knock out the entry in the West hand first, then he can again set the suit up but when East next gets in, he will have no further clubs left.
Julian Foster (many times NSW representative) ♣♦♥♠
