Help him help you
This beauty came up in the Lockdown battle league match between DSM and Monica
Hand rotated for convenience.
Sitting West you pick up the following hand, and see the opponents bidding happily to grandslam in spades
Well, what do you lead?
Given the bits and pieces you hold in every side suit, it seems best to get off the lead with a trump. Ashok Goel of DSM did so.
Let’s see the full hand
You can imagine what his pd, Subhash Gupta, would have felt on seeing that lead. Need I say that we are grateful this match was at BBO so guruji was at home with no one to strangle😀
At the other table, Sandip datta , sitting East also heard a similar auction. He was sweating, not because it was hot, or because Corona had attacked. It was because he could see opponents bidding grand, and his partner making a text book lead of trump killing his jxxx. So he decided to do something about it. Anything at all to get his partner not to lead a spade.
He doubled 6♥ !!!
What an imaginative solution to a quandary.
Take a bow Datta.
The grand can still be made on a trump coup, plus a finesse or two. But that detracts nothing from datta
Sandip, that was brilliant and imaginative. Loved it
By looking only at bidding and the leader’s hand given my choice of lead was club J. Spade lead somehow didnt even come as an option.
Credit to Sandip dutta.. but thats a very dangerous ploy and in todays times leading a trump holding stiff is not a good idea in a grand..hence doubling a suit where u have garbage might awake the declarer into thinking why did he do that.. the only logical conclusion to that is he doesnt want pd to lead a trump.. and a brave declarer might now pick up trumps which otherwise he would not do.. having said that it will take a brave declarer to draw that conclusion and if he does that he should be credited for that.. for now the credit will go to sandip dutta.
Good job.