Textbook April 8, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Blog.Tags: Advanced, Defense
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I just finished playing on BBO against 13 year old prodigy Adam Kaplan and his partner. Because of Adam’s aggressive bidding I got the chance to be either the hero or the goat, depending on how I defended. But first, the bidding.
Adams partner on my right opened 1
, and I passed with Qxxx 
xxx 
QTxx 
xx. Adam bid 2, and my partner came in with 2. RHO passed, and I raised to 3. Eventually Adam bid keycard for spades, then bid 6 after his partner showed 2 without the queen. I led a diamond and here is what I saw:
The first trick is ruffed with partner encouraging, and declarer leads a spade to his jack. What is your plan?
This is the type of hand where a lot of learning from books will pay off. This type of situation is common in textbooks, but very rare and counterintuitive at the table. If you win this spade, declarer is in control. He will be able to pull trumps and have plenty of tricks.
The solution is to duck the spade. This puts you in control. Declarer cannot pull trumps, otherwise you will end up scoring a diamond trick and your spade trick. However, if they run clubs first you can ruff in and punch dummy with a diamond which will promote your spade queen again. They have no winning options.
Not really a hard play if you have seen the situation before, but almost impossible otherwise.
Interesting hand.
Maybe declarer should throw a heart instead of ruffing on the first trick..
The winning play on this hand was to throw a Heart from dummy. Now declarer can Backwards hook the Spade, enter his hand with a Heart and claim. In addition, 6 Clubs was Ice, but it was tough to find… Well done, Justin!