Any hope?
You deal yourself a nice looking 19 hcp vul opp fresh and thinking of all the slam auction sequences that you play, you open a club.
W
natskh
♠
AJ92
♥
K
♦
K73
♣
AKJ75
Things don’t quite go the way you had hoped for. It soon becomes clear that not only are you not going to be in a slam or game, infact you are going to end up defending a partial. Here’s the auction as it unfolds.
W
West
N
North
E
East
S
South
1♣
1♦
Pass
1♥
Dbl
2♥
3♣
3♥
All Pass
With opponents bidding both red suits, your kings aren’t worth much. Pd doesn’t have spades so if you are going to compete it will have to be at 4 level. So you take the low road and pass 3♥ . Nobody has any more to say.
It seems natural to lead ♣ A, nothing else has any appeal so you make it.
Lets see the dummy.
0
Ya, well defended. But shouldn’t South have banged the HA? Deciding to lose 2C+1S+1H? and get a whiff of it as it seemed West was cashing out.
Otherwise a great hand to instruct on eliminating various defenses and hope that the cards are such(5M+5M) even though the evidence says something else.
Declarer's best option is probably to just leave trumps alone. Play Diamond ace and DJ, discarding the losing club is perhaps best. Lets say they continue 3rd spade, you ruff with queen and if they are able to overruff, you have a claim. Ruff the diamond return high, draw trumps using J and T, and throw 2 spade losers on good diamonds.
If they don't overruff, you have to do a bit of work. West is known to be 4 spades, atleast 2 diamonds, and likely 5 clubs. If that is the case you can play HA and another. If west has 3 hearts, HA H still works. You can ruff with the Ten, cross to hand with a club ruff, draw the last trump with Jack and claim – your 5th spade is now good.
What if East has K9x Hearts and has refused to overruff? If that is the case, HA H won't work. East can win the ten with king and return the 9 locking you in hand with a spade to lose. If E has K9x H you need to finesse a H, and ruff the spades good yourself.
Which? I'd say HA and back. If East is good enough to not only not overruff with K9x, but to do it without giving it away by pausing – he/she probably deserves to win the board 🙂