Never, Ever

1st October – Board 10. Game All. Dealer East.

Some things that work are impossible to get right at the table and if the hand below were played a million times I doubt that anyone would get off to the ‘right’ opening lead.

	North: S J 9 8 3 H 9 5 4 D J 10 7 6 2 C 2
West: S A 10 H A K D K Q 9 C A Q 10 9 8 5		East: S Q 7 6 H Q J 8 7 6 3 D 8 C 7 6 3
	South: S K 5 4 2 H 10 2 D A 5 4 3 C K J 4

West	North	East	South
		2H	Dbl
4NT	No	5C	No
6H	End

I give the bidding as it happens but I can’t say that I approve. I actually don’t mind the opening bid but that double just can’t be right with the awful impletion and West’s 4NT is way too much in view of the fact that presumably he was going to bid the grand if East showed up with the ace of diamonds. But with the high adverse cards presumably lying in the South hand it looks right to have a go at six and in any event South got off to the right lead of a trump. A fairly simple approach would be to play the top trumps in dummy and lead the king of diamonds. If South wins and returns a diamond (best defence) then declarer pitches a club from hand, ruffs a diamond, draws the outstanding trump and leads a club to the queen. After ace of clubs and a ruff declarer can enter dummy with a spade and claim. It didn’t quite go like that at the table but the contract did make for a big swing but can you see that if South was inspired enough to lead a club – any club, even the king! – then fairly soon North would get a club ruff. Of course that would never, ever happen.