National Pairs

In the National Pairs Regional Final Ann and I had more than our fair share of good fortune and avoided too many unforced errors, coming first in the Exeter heat and 9th out of 244 in the national list. This is the sort of thing that happens if you are playing in luck - a tricky hand from the last round of the day against Roger Sweet and his partner.

I had the first close decision when I had to choose whether to protect or to sell out to 2♥. My hand was pretty awful but it's usually losing tactics at pairs to let the opponents play in an 8 card fit at the two level, so I risked a very thin double. The problem was that Ann expected a rather better hand and bid 3♠ over 3♥.  That was the wrong decision in theory, but the play's the thing...

South led the king of hearts which held the trick.  Ace and another trump is best now, but he continued with another heart and Ann had a chance. She ruffed, crossed to the king of clubs, ruffed another heart and cashed the two top clubs, throwing a heart and a diamond. Now Ann played a diamond to the king, but this lost to the ace and South played a diamond back to North's queen. North now erred by playing the ten of spades, restricting the defence to one trump trick so the contract made for a near top.

Declarer can always succeed by discarding two diamonds on the clubs. Now ruff a club to hand and ruff the last heart in dummy. This needs South to have the last club, surely a better chance than the ace of diamonds with North.

One off in 3♠ would still have been a 60% board for us. To get a good score North-South need to double. Or North could have overtaken the king of hearts at trick 1 and switched to a trump, which would have led to an easy two down.

3♥ would have been an interesting contract. Deep Finesse says that it can only be beaten by an improbable low club lead followed by a trump switch, but what would have happened on a normal spade lead? Let's assume declarer wins the ace of spades, takes two rounds of trumps and plays back a spade to establish dummy's ten. East wins, cashes the king of clubs and switches to a trump. Now declarer can only get home by drawing trumps ending in dummy, to reach this position.

Declarer plays the winning spade, throwing a low diamond from hand, and West cannot afford a discard in either minor. If he throws a diamond declarer finesses the jack of diamonds and plays a club; if he throws a club declarer plays a club immediately.

Would declarer have managed all this?  It seems an unlikely line to find at the table, but more than half the declarers in heart contracts made nine tricks. Maybe East didn't find the unblock of the king of clubs, which allows declarer to get home without the squeeze.