Would you like some IMPs? Here, have some IMPs

Posted by Johnno Newman on Friday, 31 October 2014 at 14:56

I've been meaning to get an 'IMP donor' shirt made up, and today it would've suited me well. Defending champs Griff Ware/Michael Wilkinson and Pauline Gumby/Warren Lazer stole all our IMPs, including the ones we dropped.

This board was particularly impressive/embarrassing (round 5 board 19). You are North defending 4♠ by West. You know that partner opened 3♣ in first seat at favourable vulnerability. Wilkinson has landed in 4♠ after some more NS noise:

I led ♦T, covered and  won in dummy. Declarer played two rounds of spades, noticed the break, and led a club to partner's ace. Partner played ♥K, then a club, covered and ruffed in Dummy. Wilkinson drew partner's last two trumps and cashed the ♦A.

When Declarer cashes ♣K you hold

 

What would your last pitch be?

While I was thinking about that, thankfully Michael claimed. Whichever suit I discard from establishes a trick for dummy. 

The full hand was

Hopefully you did better than me and realised partner could have been 6-4 with a singleton red suit, you overtook the ♥K, and cashed the ♥Q to find out which ruff to give. Teammate Will Jenner-O'Shea also made 4♠, but South hadn't preempted (probably making it harder for North to defend). Perhaps I fell asleep when partner relinquished the beer card at trick one, a pessimistic sign for defensive hopes to the unconscious.