Ruffing to get that last trick
If diamonds break 3-3 on this hand, no problem, but we need to know if they are breaking before drawing trumps.
We end up as declarer on this hand and theres's a deep loser, maybe. How can we find out before it's too late?
Partner makes a limit bid
13 high card points, so this is an easy 1♥ opening bid. North bids 1♠ showing four or more spades and or more points. And I'm going to bid two diamonds here. I've shown five hearts and four diamonds. Even if you are playing Acol with four card majors, it's still showing five hearts and four diamonds. And sometimes there's a bit of confusion about this.
The simplest way I always think about it is that if I had two 4-card suits, I'd be balanced. So I'd either open 1NT or bid no trumps on the second round. So the fact that I bid two suits means I'm unbalanced and my hearts are going to be longer than my diamonds because I bid those first. So I'm showing five hearts and four diamonds. Now standard players of course playing five card majors, when you 1♥, you've shown five anyway.
North makes a limit bid of 3♥ showing heart support and around 10 or 11 high card points. I'm going to bit game here. I really like this hand. I like the fact that I've got ace king, queen of hearts because that's going to make the eight and seven easier to win tricks with.
Planning the play
King of clubs lead, all right, so let's work through this hand before we do anything. We've got a club to lose. There's nothing we can do about it. And there's no way to avoid one spade loser. What about the diamonds? We've got ♦A and ♦K, but there's no way to avoid one diamond loser. So we've got one loser in each of the side suits. We're going to have to hope for no losers in the heart suit.
If the diamonds break 3-3 then I can just play ♦A, ♦K, another diamond, lose that diamond and then my last diamond will be a winner. But what if one player has a four card diamond suit? That would mean I end up with two diamond losers.
Maybe I can ruff my losing diamond. ♦A, ♦K, lose a diamond and then ruff a diamond. That would work, but I might get over-ruffed. But there's a chance because when I play my fourth diamond, maybe the person who's got no diamonds left does not have the ♥J.
I can afford to draw one round of trumps, but I can't afford to draw anymore because if I play ♦A, ♦K and another diamond and then the opposition return a heart, I'm going have no trumps left to ruff that last diamond.
We have a plan! Fingers crossed and away we go!
tags: #declarerplay
