[kenrexford]

Scoring: MP

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West deals an opens 1♣. North overcalls 1♥. Stuff happens, and North ends up declaring 5♥, maybe doubled for good measure.

With hearts splitting 2-1 or 1-2, and the diamond finesse agains the Queen working, and diamond 3-2 or 2-3, any guesses as to how all Declarers were held to 10 tricks?

The answer is kind of interesting from a theory perspective.

[kenrexford]

Answer:

Spoiler

Opening heart lead. Declarer wins the first heart and then plays spade Ace, ruff a spade. A second heart to hand results in trumps pulled, so another spade is ruffed, to eliminate spades. Most people were just getting their ruffs in "while they had the chance."

Anyway, now a club is played, obviously.

West, who has the Ace-King, pops in his King and has the lead.

Now, what happens next is either a thing of beauty or just bumbling good luck.

Step #1: West gives Declarer a ruff-sluff by leading his last spade. He either does this because of an elaborate ruse planned for the end position, or because he doesn't want to lead a diamond or a club under these conditions because he's just plain scared.

Step #2: Declarer ruff the spade on dummy while pitching one of his four diamonds. He now plays a second club off dummy, of course, with West popping Ace (either brilliantly or dumb luck), ruffing.

Now, the end position is easy. Declarer needed the Queen on hook earlier, because he had four diamonds to deal with. The ruff-sluff reduced him to three diamonds. The establishment of the club Queen as a trick allows a pitch of a diamond. So, Declarer now has a losing option. Rather than playing East for the Queen, he can play East for the Ace by leading to the King and throwing a diamond on the good club. Plus, it just somehow seems like Declarer should do this, he thinks. I mean, West juist gave him a ruff-sluff and a free trick in clubs, and you have to take advantage of the opponents' errors, right?

I liked this layout because it illustrated a neat idea -- West is able to create two tricks for Declarer of of air, but they only allow pitches of what will be good cards and yet create a losing option. The key is that West is removing the NEED for Declarer to play for a specific position, and it takes two magic tricks to accomplish this.

Neat, eh?

[Phil]

LOL, not really. Eliminating the spades is nullo and complicates the middle game.

[se12sam]

If South was declarer, he'd ALWAYS score 11 tricks.

I think it's a "habit" issue that we like to ruff into dummy. When North is dummy, South's "habit" will stop him from ruffing spades to hand. He simply draw trumps and try to ruff clubs in dummy, and tries the diamond finesses on the way.

[ArtK78]

It is impossible for a competent declarer to go down in 5♥ with the ♦Q onside and both red suits splitting. Ruffing all of the black suit "losers" is really very silly. It is the only way that declarer can lose control of the hand.

[kenrexford]

ArtK78, on May 17 2009, 09:42 AM, said:

It is impossible for a competent declarer to go down in 5♥ with the ♦Q onside and both red suits splitting. Ruffing all of the black suit "losers" is really very silly. It is the only way that declarer can lose control of the hand.

True. However, every actual declarer did.

So, if you want to take advantage of this sort of thing, then you might recignize the ability to offer this sort of coup up.

Plus, on other hands, this coup type might take less effort and might present itself in a situation when Declarer's moves are logical.

Finally, some of us find the mind of the insane interesting to work out, for pure intellectual challenge reasons.