Hand of the Week #142 (Solution) ♠

As mentioned before, we have a lot of losers in this hand. It looks as if we are going to lose 2 diamonds straight away, and we also have what looks to be 1 trump loser, a couple of small hearts to deal with and even a possible club loser. If we are to make this hand we are going to need to play the trumps for 1 loser only (any 3-2 break or some 4-1 breaks – more on that later!) and we also need to avoid the club loser, whilst relying on the clubs to discard our heart losers. It’s fair to say that we need a lot going for us to even stand a chance in this very thin game. For the clubs to yield enough tricks to discard our heart losers we require South to have the missing ♣K (so the finesse succeeds) and also for the clubs to break nicely so we have sufficient discards for our 2 small hearts in hand. Before playing on that suit though we would like to draw the trumps, and with this trump suit 1 loser is almost always inevitable (♠QJ doubleton is the only chance of no losers) but we must avoid more than 1 loser in spades. If the spades are 3-2 then we are fine to just cash the ♠AK and leave them with their big trump left, according to the rule of 1, but if they are 4-1 we are going to need to be more careful…

So, lose the opening 2 tricks to North’s ♦AK and make sure to win the likely heart switch in hand with the ♥A (maintaining the ♥K as an entry to dummy). Next, cash the ♠A, waiting to see if you see a singleton honour (the principle of restricted choice might occur here!) but unfortunately North-South just follow with small spades. Then play a low club to the ♣Q on the dummy, taking the finesse there. We need this finesse to succeed or we are off, its as simple as that. Fortunately for us the finesse does work, so we know we are still in with a chance here. Now comes the clever bit, in spades we have ♠K10xx left in hand, with the opponents having 3 spades left between them. We know we are to lose 1 spade at least as we are still missing ♠Q and ♠J, and as long as the remaining spades are breaking 2-1 then we will indeed only lose 1 spade. But if they are 3-0 are we just doomed? Well, no. We can deal with a 3-0 break if North has all of the remaining spades as we can lead a low spade to the ♠K10xx in hand, and if we don’t see either of the ♠Q or ♠J then we insert the ♠10. If this loses to South, then we know they have broken so the ♠K will mop the suit up on the next round, but if this wins and South shows out then we have excellently protected ourselves against this nasty break. This kind of play is known as a safety play. We are playing a suit cautiously to make sure we aren’t punished by a mean break. As you can see in the hand diagram above, this safety play is rewarded as the ♠10 wins the trick. Cash the ♠K on the next round and leave North with their one remaining trump honour. Next, we need to re-finesse the clubs by playing a low club to the ♣J, and count the clubs. We have had 2 rounds so far, so that’s 8 gone and we have 3 on dummy remaining so that leaves just 2 left, and we still have the ♣A. In our last ‘Hail Mary’ we need to cash the ♣A (throwing 1 heart loser from hand) and hope for a club break, thus promoting club winners on the table – and as it just so happens the club break occurs! We now can win the clubs on the table and throw our other heart loser on the long club(s). North can ruff in when they like because we always have the carefully preserved ♥K as an entry back to dummy’s clubs to get rid of our heart loser(s). A very shaky ♠4 contract landed!

We needed a lot to go our way here. A 3-3 break in clubs, the ♣K with South and either a 3-2 break in spades or a 4-1 break with North having the 4. We got very lucky to make this contract, but sometimes you need a bit of luck and you have to play to your chances, slim though they may be.