May 17 2009
Four-Trick Compression Defense
I am playing in the local duplicate game with Lance. We are having a pretty smokin’ game so far. About halfway through the game, i pick up T97 72 K AJ98543 at favorable vulnerability. The auction proceeds.
| RHO | me | LHO | lance |
| 1S | 2C* | X | 3C |
| 3H | 5C | X | Pass |
| Pass | Pass |
* 2C was natural, but could be a hand that looks like a preempt (such as this one)
I figured it was a reasonable sacrifice against their vulnerable game. And then i saw the dummy:
 K52
|
 |
| T97
|
J98
QT87
762Whuh. And of course LHO leads a high spade, so there’s no hope for the ace being onside. I have to lose three spades, at least one club, two hearts and a diamond for down five. That’s sticks and wheels.
Might as well get this hand over with. I duck the spade and RHO wins the jack. But instead of leading to her partner’s heart for another spade through, she cashes the spade ace and returns a third one for him to ruff, which he does – with the QC. There’s one trick they’ve given back.
Now LHO is in. He’s unwilling to lead or underlead his heart ace, so he switches to the 9D. I cover with the T, RHO covers with the J, and my stiff King wins the trick. There’s the second trick given back.
I pull trumps in one round (leftie started with KQ alone), and play the club 3 to dummy’s 6. I led the QD, rightie covered with the ace, and i trump high, of course, preserving my club 4 to lead to dummy’s 7 in order to pitch my two losing hearts on dummy’s good diamonds. And there are two more tricks they didn’t get.
So there you have it. -1100 turned into -100 and a top board. We went on to win the event that night.
Never give up.