This deal comes from many years ago. I write about it because a similar hand came up at X-Clubs and
I asked a panel of club players how they would play the trump suit when they held AQJ962 in hand and
the singleton 5 in dummy. There were different answers and quite a bit of statistical analyis but it
seems the play that would yield the best result (by a very small margin) is to lead the 5 and finesse the
9. I was asked this question and said my gut feel was to finesse the nine: if the ten was with East and
the nine forced the king I would make the rest of the spades unless there was a very bad break. I am not
great with statistics but it seems that AI says that finessing the NINE would result in five tricks 48.44%
of the time, finessing the queen or jack 37.50% of the time, and simply playing the ace followed by the
queen would yield five tricks 35.94% of the time. But in the back of my mind was the question of
whether the first card that East played should make any difference. It brought back vague memories of
a very similar hand I wrote about years ago:
Dealer W NS Vul
West opened 1NT. North bid 2NT, for the minors, but South bid a very optimistic 4S. North was so
annoyed that he thought he’d teach South a lesson, and bid 6S! West doubled and led the king of clubs.
Declarer won the ace and saw there was virtually no chance. However, there was a glimmer of hope,
that East had, exactly, a doubleton K10 of trumps, about all he could have, considering West’s 1NT
opening. But when declarer called for the five from dummy East produced the eight! K10 doubleton
was no longer a possibility, the EIGHT told him that. But, as all good declarers should do, he now
switched to plan B. If East’s lowest card was the eight, he had started with K108, 108, or K8. The play
of the eight was something like ‘restricted choice’, but very restricted. Declarer therefore finessed the
queen, and it held! The ace felled East’s king and declarer then led the diamond three and confidently
finessed the jack, then discarded the losing club on the ace and ruffed a club in hand. Next, the heart
finesse to the jack also held and after cashing the third diamond, another club was ruffed, East showing
out. A heart to the ace and the final ‘coup de grace, a club on which declarer discarded his final heart
loser, a classic loser on loser play, end playing West who had to lead a trump from the 10-7 to declarer’s
J-9. Declarer could also just have ruffed a club for the extra trick but the loser on loser end play is much
more flamboyant do you not agree? Final note: never give up when a hoped-for plan is doomed, there
is often a plan B.
5
AQ
AKJ42
A6532