May 02 2011
Warm Up
Playing in the District 7 GNT qualifying Swiss event, the very first match pits our team against one of the other Raleigh teams. The pair at our table consists of two regular RBC players – we could have stayed home to play this match. This is not the scariest team out there (in fact, our team is probably the scariest one). The very first board of the day finds me declaring a touchy 3NT contract.
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East opened a precision 1♦, which is nebulous, but puts him with most of the outstanding high cards, although not all. The ♦J lead is helpful in many ways – it gives me three tricks in the diamond suit and also tells me both round-suit Aces are on my right. (LHO may have passed with an Ace and nothing else, but probably not with an Ace and a Jack.)
So i have three diamonds and three spades for sure. I can’t play the club suit myself. Spades might be 3-3, but i’ll still need at least two tricks from the heart suit. Hearts may be 3-3 as well. And an endplay seems more than likely.
I win the ♦K and lead a heart to the Jack, which wins. Now a spade to the King and another heart. RHO rises with the Ace and leads back the ♥Q. I win while LHO throws a club. I’m up to eight tricks.
Next i cash the ♠A and ♠Q, and RHO shows out, pitching a diamond. The way is now clear. I finesse the ♦T, cash the Ace and exit with a red card to RHO, who can cash his two red tricks but then endplayed to concede a trick to the ♣K in dummy.
If RHO had pitched his small club on the third spade, i would have needed to take the diamond finesse and not cashed the ♦A. I can endplay RHO with a heart or a club, and he would be forced to lead diamonds for me at the end to get my ninth trick.
It was not a very difficult endplay to find, but i’m sure glad Lance and i played three online speedball events that morning to warm up. Focusing at the very beginning of the day is often difficult. It paid off this time as we went 7-1 against our opponents, and won the right to choose our victim for the semifinal match the next day. We were the victims in the final, though. I wish good luck in the nationals to the team who beat us.