- The other day I was involved in a knockout teams event and the opposition were taking us to the wire. On the penultimate board my partner and I bid up to a small slam in spades on our combined 19 count.
- Partner held:...........................A108x....... AQJxxx....xx......x
- Opposite my:.........................KJ9xxxx.........x............x......Axxx
- The opening lead was the 7 of hearts. My initial plan was to take the two outside Aces, ruff three clubs, and then harvest 7 spades....using the Ace and the King later on to pull the two outstanding trumps. But that meant ruffing hearts to get back into my own hand to lead clubs. The heart lead made me deeply suspicious. What if my RHO is short in hearts and has both the outstanding trumps? Yet if I take two rounds of trumps early, might this restrict my ability to ruff three clubs?
- Then in a flash, the solution came to me. The correct and best line, which guarantees the contract whatever the lay of the cards, simply involves taking trick one with the Ace of hearts.......followed immediately by two rounds of trumps ending in dummy. At trick four all I needed to do I was play the queen of hearts and discard my diamond, irrespective of who came in with the King. Now, I could ruff two losing clubs with dummy's two remaining trumps, pitching my third losing club on the established jack of hearts. Slam made.
The match was won......and logical thinking had triumphed again.
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