Hand of the Month for February (so far)

February 18th, 2010  ~  Jim Priebe  ~  7 Comments 

Take a look at two hands before reading further.

The bidding at your table has gone

You lead the king of hearts, dummy follows, partner plays the 8, and declarer the 3.  How do you continue?

The hand came up in the team league at John Rayner’s Mississauga club.  At one table, West read this as suit preference and switched to a diamond.  At the other table West read the signal as attitude and continued with the 7 of hearts.

Which do you prefer?

This was the whole hand.

If you continued with a heart, declarer has no play.  He runs the heart to his nine, pitching a diamond from dummy.  The spade king reveals the foul trump break.  The queen of hearts is covered, ruffed and over-ruffed.  A losing diamond finesse  followed by a fourth round of hearts leaves declarer one down.  Declarer can do nothing better against this defense.

At the other table, Debbie Feldman, the declarer, took full advantage of the diamond switch.  She won the diamond ten in dummy, played 3 rounds of clubs ruffing in hand and played the queen of hearts.  West covered, Debbie ruffed in dummy and only now touched trumps.  A spade to the king revealed the bad break.   Debbie played the Q of hearts, pitching a diamond from dummy, and East ruffed to win the trick.  This was the position.

West’s holding is Immaterial .

East played a diamond now.  Debbie won her ace and followed with a diamond ruff.  The spade ten now pickled East’s third trump trick.   He could do nothing but win and lead into dummy’s A9.

This is a pretty hand from both defender’s and declarer’s viewpoint.  At trick 2, West does not know whether partner is showing a doubleton or the queen, but he can be sure that partner sees no attractive switch.