On Guard

In the teams at Dorchester the following hand was of interest in both bidding and play.



Hilary and Chris were the only pair to bid to the par conract of 7♣ with the auction shown. 4♣ was Roman Key Card Blackwood with clubs agreed and 5♦ asked for specific kings.

I know you shouldn't argue with success, but maybe North should have bid RKCB directly over 3♣. I expect that most Souths would have bid 3♠ over 3♦, and then any subsequent RKCB bid would have assumed spades as trumps.

In 7♣ you have twelve top tricks and a heart ruff for the thirteenth. But the question in the bar afterwards was whether you could make 7NT if West makes the most awkward lead of a heart. The winning line is to run six club tricks, discarding a diamond and three spades (unblocking the 10) from dummy. West cannot afford to throw a diamond or a spade, as a spade discard would allow declarer to take three spade tricks by a finesse against East. So West must throw all his hearts, and now three rounds of diamonds squeeze East in the majors. Click on 'Next' in the diagram to follow the play.

This type of squeeze, where a player needs to keep a holding to prevent his partner being finessed, is called a guard squeeze. To be more precise, it's a double guard squeeze, similar to the second example here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_squeeze

A Chance Missed

In the Weymouth handicap teams, we scraped home by a fraction of a per cent, though things would have been more comfortable if we had been on the right side of this interesting slam hand

	♠ A K 6 ♥ Q 10 ♦ A Q 3 ♣ A K 9 7 3
	♠ 4 3 ♥ A J 8 7 4 3 ♦ K 7 4 2 ♣ 2

South	West	North	East
2♥	p	2NT	p
3♥	p	5♥	p
6♥	p	p	p

For once I was quite pleased with our auction. 2NT was an enquiry and 3♥ showed upper range (8-9 HCP), but without 2 of the top 3 honours in hearts. 5♥ now showed controls in all the outside suits and asked partner to bid on with good trumps.

West led a spade, and declarer won in dummy and ran the queen of trumps, West discarding a spade. Declarer now played the ten of trumps, and again East defended accurately by refusing to cover. What had seemed to be a laydown contract was now quite awkward, as declarer needs to bring off a trump coup against East.

I think the best line is to cash the ace and king of diamonds, king of spades and ruff a spade, then play two top clubs. If all this has passed off peacefully the position is now

	♠ ♥ ♦ Q ♣ 9 7 3
immaterial		♠ ? ♥ K 9 6 ♦ ? ♣ ?
	♠ ♥ A J 8 ♦ 2 ♣

East is down to 3 trumps and one other card, but it doesn't matter what it is. Declarer leads a club from dummy and ruffs in hand, then exits with a diamond to endplay East. If East ruffs in the diagrammed position, declarer overruffs and plays a diamond, still losing just one trump trick.

That line of play succeeds as long as East does not have a singleton or void in a side suit. If East started with a 2-5-4-2 distribution he can discard a club on the third spade and ruff the second round of clubs. No matter, declarer can overruff, cash the queen of diamonds and lead another club to make two more tricks with the A J of trumps.

At the table East held a 2-5-2-4 shape and declarer erred by playing a third diamond, allowing East to ruff while he still had an exit card in clubs.

Getting the Monkey off our Back

In the second round of the Gold Cup we managed to end a losing streak against Jeremy Baker's team that had lasted for over ten years, winning a closely fought match by 14 imp. Even though it cost us a lot of points, this was the most interesting hand. East dealt at Game All and both Wests (I was one of them) chose to open 3 clubs in 3rd seat.

At my table North doubled, South bid 3 spades and North rebid 3NT. Declarer ducked the club lead and, with no future in clubs, I switched to a heart to try and attack dummy's entry. Declarer won in hand with the Ace, played Ace and another spade to dummy's Jack, then finessed the Queen of diamonds. East took this and returned a heart but declarer could win, cross to hand and lead another spade, setting up the spades with the Jack of diamonds as an entry. It would not help East to duck the diamond, as declarer could play a spade while the king of hearts was still in dummy.



At the other table South bid an optimistic 4 spades, but North was aware of his partner's rose-tinted spectacles and passed where some would have made a slam try. 4 spades is a much trickier proposition than 3NT, and it's not easy to see how to make it without taking some unlikely double-dummy plays (such as ducking the first club or finessing the 10 of hearts). However, the line shown on the diagram (click on 'Next' to follow the play through) seems a reasonable way to play the hand.

The key play is the low spade lead at trick 2. If you play Ace and another spade East can win and then West plays two rounds of clubs. East can overruff dummy and exit with his last trump, and wait to make the king of diamonds.

On the suggested play, if East goes up with the King of trumps at trick 2 and West plays two rounds of clubs, this still promotes a second trump trick for East. The difference is that he can now be endplayed with his last trump and forced to lead a red suit so that declarer avoids a diamond loser.

Apart from this hand, I felt that we had more than our fair share of the luck, but who's complaining?