Hi all
This deal is from Star. During summer season I get to play with a lot of random partners and this time I was lucky to play with Dirk "Bear".
2
341. 14-16 NT
2. still aspiring slam
3. cue, no cue!
4. Hoot hoot!
The bidding looks quite straightforward. I nearly fell from my chair when Dirk skipped the control. So it might seem strange to ask for Aces when holding a void, but during the bidding I already found out partner had no wasted honours in my void. When partner showed two keys with trump Queen I felt like Moses for a moment, seeing everything on board. I wasted no time and jumped to the grand.
LHO started with a small trump and I notice thirteen tricks are not available upon request.
I took the lead in dummy and played a small from dummy. That was too much pressure for East and he inserted the King (!). I ruffed and cashed the King of trumps seeing trumps split. I crossed to trump Ace and asked for the Queen. East took a fifteen second pause before playing low. I discarded my Ten and West coughs up the Jack.
Huh? A 2-7 split?
I play the Queen from table and another one to my hand, East showing out on the second one. Oh boy! West stops my fifth with the Ten. But I don’t let my head down. With two more I have worked myself to this position:
On trump Jack I squeeze West out of Queen-third in and the Ten. So the shiny 9 is my thirteenth trick.
A small detail that might go by unnoticed. When you find out about the bad split it looks like you can revert to the suit as a source for four tricks. But there are no entries to dummy anymore and West can ruin your communications by inserting the Queen of on the right moment.
Sometimes you get to play with glass cards. I feel like a beast, an ancient beast. Can you hear my roar?
Nice play, Jannes, but you could have done a little better after you ditched a spade on the
Queen. You now have a play which is virtually 100%:
The only trouble this contract now has, is when the hearts splits 5-1 or 6-0. Only west can have 5 or 6 hearts (east already has two clubs and it looks like he has seven diamonds). But if west has 5 hearts, he is very likely to have exactly three spades (west has three clubs and two diamonds (although west could have falsecarded!)), so there is a big chance the queen of spades will drop in three rounds of spades. So the only thing south has to do now is play spade king, ace and ruff a spade. He can cross to the queen of hearts and throw his fifth heart on the 9 of spades.
This will only go wrong if the hearts are 5-1 or 6-0 (else the hearts will run for 12 tricks) and spades are 2-4 (or worse). But the diamonds seems to be 2-7, so if the spades are 2-4, the hearts are 6-0 and east would probably made a lightner double with a 4-0-7-2 holding.
Interesting hand where you have a complete count of the opponents hands after 5 tricks (with some assumptions).