Today's deal requires a little bit of luck and excellent technique thereafter
Picture yourself in 6NT on the hand below. Can you make the contract? While most declarers failed to score it, one actually went on to score 13 for what is known in Mumbai as an 'All India Top'
The bidding went simply 2NT-6NT and you received the ♥9 as the opening lead. Try your hand at the board before you read on.
Analysis :
You have 11 tricks in hand. If either the diamonds or spades break, you are good. In addition, if the spade jack falls doubleton, you should be good too.
Play:
The standard play was to win the heart lead in dummy and duck a diamond at trick two. West won and returned a heart. Winning the continuation in hand they cashed the top three spades and the ♦AK. There was unfortunately no joy in this as the complete hands were
The winning line
This inspired declarer won the lead and finessed the ♣T at trick two! When that held, He cashed the ♣K and the ♦AK. He now crossed to dummy with the ♥Q on which West discarded a club. He then cashed the ♣AQ pitching his diamonds. West could afford a diamond on the third club but was squeezed in spades and diamonds on the fourth!
What an inspired play!
Discussion
While working on the clubs was an inspired guess, the rest of the play was exquisite. Maybe it was not as inspired as it appears at first sight. Given the actual distribution, declarer would have collected twelve tricks even if the club finesse had lost, as West can be squeezed by the same play he adopted.
Declarer could have gone down on a different lie of the opponents’ cards. He was lucky and earned a well-deserved top by executing the squeeze.
The cashing of the D A-K before proceeding to cash the heart and club winners is the ‘Vienna Coup’, without which the squeeze would have failed to produce the thirteenth trick. You will be surprised to know that this ‘coup’ was recognized as long as 200 years ago in Vienna during the whist days.
How the play went:
A very fine player of national repute had an aberration in today’s deal from the Winter Nationals, held in Pune some years ago.
Declarer played the two from dummy, East following with the nine. After winning the opening lead, declarer cashed the ♣A and ruffed a club with the ♠10. Entering hand by the ♥Q, declarer ruffed one more club with the ♠A, both defenders following suit.
He now ruffed the ♦3 in his hand and tried to draw trumps. To his dismay, he found his RHO showing out on the second round, thereby going down in the contract because the ♠8 had got promoted in the west hand. The full hand was
Analysis:
Let us now analyze the hand on the lines that the experts have guided us
- Once the lead hits the table, we can count 11 winners viz 5 Spades, 3 Clubs and 3 Hearts
- We can see two two losers in our hand.
- We can take care of the losers by ruffing two clubs in dummy.
- The above seems to ensure 13 tricks. What could go wrong?The only obstacle that we can overcome is spades breaking 4-1. The way to ensure that is by engineering a ruff with the ♠2 and use 4 high trumps to draw opposing trumps
Accordingly, we win the opening lead in dummy with the ace. Play a club to the ace and ruff a club with the ♠2. Enter hand by ♥Q and ruff one more club. Now ruff the ♦3 in hand, draw trumps with the ♠ K-Q-J, and claim the balance.
Did you play the hand right? Do let us know in the comments section below!
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.