Hint: I hope you did not raise clubs or bid two hearts!
This is an excercise in deception. You do not want East to get in with the ace of clubs to continue spades. Assuming the diamond finesse loses, how do you convince West to continue spades rather than shifing to a club?
HT: Eddie Kantar: Test Your Declarer Play
This is an exercise in figuring out what to do about the club suit. You may have two losers in hearts, so you may need to hold your club losers to one. It would be helpful if you could induce the opponents to lead clubs. By planning your entries carefully, you can make the opponents help you!
HT: Mike Lawrence in the Bridge Bulletin
…subtract 1 point for a singleton king, queen or jack.
Marty Bergen, Bridge Bulletin, November 2019, p. 57
Also, in the September issue of the Bulletin Marty recommends subtracting 1 point for a hand containing three or four queens. Making Marty’s adjustment to the guideline of 20 should help you answer this question.
I recommend you follow Marty Bergen’s recent articles on hand evaluation in the Bulletin. What would Marty recommend on this one?
Here is an interesting defensive hand from a recent game. Put yourself in the East seat:
East
North opened the bidding two clubs. South responded two diamonds (waiting). North’s rebid was 2NT (22-23 HCP). Souith raised to 3NT. Finding the right defense was difficult. What would you lead from the East hand?
Time to count: You have 12 points, declarer has 22-23, dummy should have 3+, and partner will be lucky to have so much as one jack.
Knowing from the bidding that partner is probably broke and that opponents have shown no interest in the majors, East should consider a heart attack on opening lead. But which card? I recommend the king* of hearts. Partner will give you attitude when she follows suit. You lead the king, and this is what you see in dummy:
Dummy
When you see Dummy come down you realize that South got a bit too aggressive when she bid 3NT. It’s not a percentage contract, and there is hope for your side. You can now place Partner with two or three points. Partner plays the encouraging seven, and declarer follows with the six. Now what? Do you play the ace or lead the eight, hoping partner has the queen?
My take is that you should cash the ace. It’s more likely that declarer, rather than partner, holds the queen. Partner has no entries, and you may be able to drop the doubleton queen. If partner happens to hold the queen, nothing is lost.
*The recommended lead from A K J 9 is the ace, asking partner to play her highest card. That will let East know if the suit will run. But your heart holding isn’t good enough for that (8 rather than 9).
Be aware of implications uncovered during the auction. That awareness may suggest the need for an unusual action during the bidding. Here is an example.
Declarer made five clubs without breaking a sweat. The unusual use of unusual notrump resulted in a top board.
This is from Warren Buffett in comparing bridge to investing:
The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop. You do whatever the probabilities indicated based on the knowledge that you have at that time, but you are always willing to modify your behavior or your approach as you get new information.
Here is a fun little mini-puzzle for you. Spades are trump and lead is in the South hand. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to take eight tricks against any defense. Enjoy:
Please give me your thoughts in the comments or by email.
This one isn’t as hard as last month’s Double Dummy puzzle from hell. You are South in 6NT and opening lead is the queen of hearts. Take 12 tricks against any defense. Enjoy:
