An Interesting Hand against England

ROUND 14

Australia vs England

Board 6

I had previously dismissed the hand as poor play by the English declarer. However, more credit should be given to Jamie Thompson (North) for finding the lead to give declarer a problem.

This was the hand in question

 

The auction at a lot of tables went like this.

 

On a natural Spade lead, as happened at the other Australian table, declarer had no choice but to get the hand right. They drew trumps in 4 rounds and eventually took the Diamond finesse.

However, Jamie anticipated the favourable diamond layout, and led the ♦T which put the English declarer to an immediate guess.

Faced with the ♦T lead in dummy's first bid suit, the English declarer found a strong alternative line.

His plan, assuming trumps were 3/2, was to win the ♦A, draw trumps and then run 4 rounds of clubs, pitching both of dummy's spades.

Now in the 5 card ending with South marked with the ♠A, a diamond towards dummy will bring home contract on almost any diamond layout. 

 

If South started with long diamonds, they must keep 3 diamonds and only 2 spades, which allows one of the suits to be established via an endplay.

And if it was North who started with 4 diamonds (as on the actual hand), they must duck the diamond to avoid the suit being established. Now, with 2 diamond tricks in the bank, declarer can strip South's last diamond and endplay them to establish a spade trick.

 

The only problem with declarer's plan was the 4-1 trump break, which on the actual layout, scuttled the contract at trick 3! 

Overall a great lead by Jamie and an unlucky counterplay by declarer!

 

Posted by Mike and Chris on Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 01:37