Hand of the Week, 4/4/96

by Rowen Bell

This week's hand arose in a private team game a few weeks ago. Scoring is at IMPS, South is the dealer, and both sides are vulnerable.

				North
				S: AKQ62
				H: K985
				D: T3
				C: Q4
		West				East
		S: 3				S: JT94
		H: --				H: JT32
		D: KQ9542			D: A6
		C: KJT975			C: 832
				South
				S: 875
				H: AQ764
				D: J87
				C: A6

	
           	North	East	South	West
	        -----------------------------
	        		 1H	2NT
	         3C!	pass	 3H     3NT
	         4H     dble	pass	pass
	        pass

South's rather light 1H opening landed him in a doubled contract, but the auction provided him with a great deal of information. West's 2NT overcall showed at least 5 cards in each minor suit. North's 3C bid was artificial, agreeing hearts and showing at least invitational values. South tried to sign off in 3H, but West intervened with a 3NT overcall, once again stressing his interest in the minor suits. North chose to push on to game in hearts, and East now decided that his side's best chance for a plus score was through penalizing the opponents.

West led the king of diamonds, and East properly overtook with the ace and returned a diamond to West's queen. West leads a third diamond.

What should South do?

East-West's play should make you suspect that East has no more diamonds, and that East can overruff dummy (unless you ruff with the king to prevent an overruff). Of course, they could be playing deceptively to fool you into ruffing your good jack of diamonds; but the bidding makes it seem almost certain that West started with six diamonds.

South has three possible lines of play:

Ruff with the king, thus preventing an overruff.
Ruff with the nine, risking an overruff but retaining three top trumps.
Don't ruff at all.

Let's analyze these possibilities:

Ruffing with the king would be right if South thought that East held JTx of hearts, for in this case South can still lose no hearts by repeatedly finessing East. However, if East has JTxx of hearts, ruffing with the king will cost the contract if the spades don't break 3-2. (South must lose a heart trick and will not have a board entry to enjoy the long spade if spades break 4-1.)
Ruffing with the nine gives up an unnecessary trump trick if East holds JTx of hearts. However, if East holds JTxx of hearts and 4 spades, South can make the contract. (Say East overruffs. Win any return and play the ace and queen of hearts, then play three rounds of spades followed by a spade ruff, then pull the last trump by playing a heart to the king, then discard your losing club on the long spade. Now say East doesn't overruff. Play the eight of hearts; East must split his honors, so you win with the queen, and play continues as before.) If West holds 13 minor suit cards, however, the contract will still be defeated if South ruffs with the nine.
Not ruffing at all concedes a third trick automatically, but it allows South to discard a club right away. In fact, refusing to ruff guarantees the contract against any distribution of the remaining cards!

Let's see what happens when South discards a club instead of ruffing. East ruffs, and his return is immaterial, but suppose he returns a club. South wins the ace and pulls trump in three rounds, ending up in the hand. He now ruffs the losing club with dummy's fourth trump and cashes three top spades, reducing his hand to nothing but hearts. There is no need to set up the long spade here, and so the spade distribution is irrelevant. Four hearts doubled, making.

Hands of the Week page