Sunday, May 31, 2009

Dethrone the King

This happened on bbo tonite in a TM. 
LHO opened precision 2C (God I hate precision!), P overcalled 2S, I boldly bid 3NT, hoping it's the right spot. 


Lead was a low club, South took the K; backed a club, Q-A-x; North continued with T of clubs for which South followed. 
I counted 8 tricks. 1 Club, 1 Spade, 1 Diamond and 5 Hearts. For the 2C bid, North's got to have the remaining Kings (S and D king). whenever he gets in, he's going to cash the winning clubs for down 1.
But wait... He's got the remaining Kings!! That's it.. that's all is needed to make the contract. After winning the club return, enter dummy with K H, cash A S discarding a D and run the Hs. At the end of Trick 9, the four card ending will be:

North
J
-
QTx
-

South
-
-
Axx
7

Now what does North keep at this position? (Notice that North's shape is clear at trick 4 when he discards on the first H trick: 4045). He has to keep 2 Ds, otherwise A and Q of Ds give the 8th and 9th trick for the declarer. Hence he only has space for 2 clubs or 1 club and K S.  Now a club exit will end play North for the 9th trick. 

Best way to beat the contract is to discard KS on AS played from dummy at trick 5. Now, North could keep, Kx of D, 1 C and 1 S. Club exit will do no good as South will get 2  more Spade tricks to beat the contract. (Also, the defence can prevail if South played 8C at trick 1.)

1 comment:

Prajwal said...

No need to discard !S K on Ace. He can discard it on Hearts and last 4 card ending with North will be :
x
-
K J
9

When you are running Hearts, defenders can easily count your tricks and it will be very easy to discard Spade King as Diamond will be 9th trick.