Hand of the Week, Vol. 2 No. 26

This deal from the Tuesday 22 September game presented an interesting problem to the defence. Sitting West, you hold

Q T 8
7 6
J T 8
K Q T 7 2

and you hear this auction:

West	North	East	South
			Pass
Pass	1	2	Double
Pass	4NT	Pass	5
Pass	6	Pass	Pass
Pass

(I would have raised to 3 at my second bid, but that wouldn't have changed the rest of the auction.) Easy questions first: what is your opening lead?

Dealer South None vul	6 K Q 3 2 A K Q 7 3 2 6 3
Q T 8 7 6 J T 8 K Q T 7 2

Your partner has at most one ace. Unless your opponents are complete idiots, you are not going to cash two spades even if partner has the AK. To set 6, you need to set up another trick, and you need to set it up before your partner's one entry is used up. The obvious opening lead is the K. You anticipate that declarer will win this trick, but hope partner will come in with the A later and return a club.

Surprise! The first trick goes K-3-4-5. What now? After seeing the dummy you are now certain your partner has one ace, and since the diamonds are going to run, you need to cash it now. Is declarer being sneaky, ducking to get you to lead a second club into his AJ, or does partner have the A?

Switching to a spade now is right. If partner had the A, he might have signalled with an encouraging spot -- or, better yet, he should remove all chance of you guessing wrong, by overtaking your king and returning a club to your queen.

Dealer South None vul	6 K Q 3 2 A K Q 7 3 2 6 3
Q T 8 7 6 J T 8 K Q T 7 2		K J 9 4 3 2 8 5 4 9 3 A 4
	A 7 5 A J T 9 6 4 J 9 8 5

Looking at all four hands, you can see that 6 is going down if, and only if, the defenders take the first two club tricks. At my table, West chose well to lead the K, but East missed his chance by forgetting to play his ace at trick one. An extremely expensive mistake, turning a cold top into a cold bottom. East needs to anticipate West's dilemma.

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