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This deal comes courtesy of my friends at the International Bridge Press Association. With both sides vulnerable, you hold:
♠A K Q 4 2 ♥2 ♦A K Q ♣Q 8 6 5
Partner opens 1♣. What is your plan? Some of my students would launch into Blackwood, but that is way too premature. You have no idea if you will play in clubs, spades or notrump. There is no harm in starting with 1♠. Left-hand opponent annoys you with a jump to 4♥ which comes back to you. Now what?
This is a tough one. Your side could easily belong in slam (probably in a black suit), but there is no room to investigate. Blackwood still wouldn’t tell you much. Let’s say you double (this is far from clear) to show extra values (you have them!). Partner pulls to 4♠.
Now, facing spade support, let’s say you finally use Blackwood, and partner shows both missing aces. You ask for kings and partner shows one (some pairs play “specific kings”), and you guess it is likely in clubs. You boldly try 7♠ and see:
♠ J 10 9 6
♥ A 6 3
♦ 10 9
♣ A K 7 3
♠ A K Q 4 2
♥ 2
♦ A K Q
♣ Q 8 6 5
The ♥K is led and down comes a very useful dummy. Partner has the right king and very nice spades. If clubs split 3–2, this will be easy. Even if they don’t, you should be able to discard a club from dummy on your diamonds and ruff your fourth club in dummy.
Let’s say you win the ♥A and start to draw trump. If they are not 4–0, you can draw all the trump, cash the top diamonds, and claim — even on a bad club split. What if trumps, however, are indeed 4–0? Let’s look at the Real Deal:
| ♠ J 10 9 6 | ||
| ♥ A 6 3 | ||
| ♦ 10 9 | ||
| ♣ A K 7 3 | ||
| ♠ 8 7 5 3 | ♠ — | |
| ♥ K Q J 10 9 8 7 5 | ♥ 4 | |
| ♦ 8 | ♦ J 7 6 5 4 3 2 | |
| ♣ — | ♣ J 10 9 4 2 | |
| ♠ A K Q 4 2 | ||
| ♥ 2 | ||
| ♦ A K Q | ||
| ♣ Q 8 6 5 |
West has quite a freaky hand, but what did you expect for a vulnerable 4♥ bid? If you played a spade to your ace at trick two you are down! What would you do next? You can’t cash the top diamonds or any clubs, because West will ruff. If you draw all his trumps, you will lose a club trick. You could try to cross twice to dummy and ruff hearts in your hand, but you no longer have the entries (you would need to cross once in clubs and West will ruff in).
So how should you have made it? You really could have claimed after the ♥A won the first trick, but not by playing a spade to your ace at trick two. The counter‑intuitive play of ruffing a heart at trick two was the winner. Ruff the heart at trick two high — you want to save your low ones for dummy entries. Cross to dummy’s ♠J and ruff another heart high. Then you play the other high trump and then a low trump to dummy to draw the remaining trumps and claim.
In effect, you reversed the dummy, taking two ruffs in your hand and four trump tricks by drawing trump with dummy’s trumps (on the fourth one, you throw your club loser). That’s six trump tricks and the other seven in top tricks (one heart, three diamonds and three clubs).
Starting with dummy’s ♠J at trick two would also have led to failure. You would no longer be able to ruff both hearts in hand and get back and forth. Try it! So, if you played any trump at trick two, down you go.
This is a bit of a trick deal, but thinking it through at trick one, as usual, provides the answer. It’s better to take a 100% line when a 99% line might fail.