Aug 02 2009
Backwards Finesse
Playing in a the second half of our 4-way match Spingold match in DC, we are down a bunch but we have hopes of finding 37 IMPs in the last 16 boards. What follows is the second hand of the set, and i find myself in a possible swing situation.
| RHO | CHO | LHO | moi |
| 2NT | |||
| Pass | 3C! | Pass | 3D! |
| Pass | 3H! | Pass | 4S |
| Pass | Pass | Pass |
The contract is 4S after a puppet stayman auction, and the lead is a passive two of spades.
 KTxx
|
 |
| AQ9x
|
xx
QJx
J876Seeing nothing else good to do, I pulled three rounds of trump ending in hand. At first glance, it looks like i’ll have to guess the hearts, but perhaps i can finagle a favorable end position in the club suit.
To that end, i led the 9C from hand and when LHO played low, i ducked. RHO won the QC. Cool! Even cooler, he returns a diamond. He might have put me to the heart guess right away. I wonder why he didn’t? I played three rounds of diamonds, then the AC and another club – the plan being that LHO will win the third club and be endplayed in hearts. Unfortunately, RHO had KQx. This time he puts a heart on the table.
I guess i might have won the third diamond in the dummy in order to lead the JC to cater to this holding. Most opponents would cover in order to promote their partner’s TC. However, that would lose to KQ tight of clubs or KTxx with LHO, so i don’t think that is better.
In any case, i am back to the heart guess. Do i have any clues? LHO led a trump initially, though that doesn’t tell me much – he would never underlead an ace, and leading away from a queen is somewhat scary against this auction. RHO might have returned a the first time he was in, but didn’t. I think he would have been more likely to consider a heart if he held the ace rather than the queen. It’s not much to go on, but i play the J and it forces the ace. Making 4.
This was the full hand:
| KTxx
|
||
| Jxx
|
|
xx
|
| AQ9x
|
At the other table, declarer pulled trumps ending in dummy and immediately guessed the hearts wrong. Unfortunately, my RHO teammate had discouraged diamonds while pitching on the 3rd trump, and my LHO teammate got active and broke the clubs. There is only one way to play the suit when LHO leads it, and that is to play him for the T. That declarer only lost one club and two hearts and also made the game, so there was no swing to be had.
We couldn’t overcome the deficit, as we were attempting to swing and pushed a little bit too hard on a few boards, but we had a great time and will hopefully be back next year!