Posted 11:04 AM by Floyd

Here is a defensive problem from a club game I played in Tuesday afternoon:

All vulnerable, 2nd seat, matchpoints.

You hold: JT4 AQ83 95 J875

RHO passes and you pass. LHO opens 1. Partner overcalls 1. RHO bids 1. You double, which you play as showing four hearts. LHO raises to 2, partner competes with 3, and RHO closes the bidding with a jump to 4.

You lead the 9 and this dummy appears:

A93 5 Q873 AQ943

Dummy plays low and partner wins the jack. Partner now plays the K and the T. Declarer ruffs with the K, so you pitch the 8 (encouraging).

Declarer cashes the Q, all following, and the K. Then he leads a low spade to dummy's ace. Partner discards the 9 (encouraging) on this trick. You have one trump left and it is high.

Declarer cashes the two high clubs in dummy, pitching hearts from his hand. Now he plays the Q (partner covers with the ace) and ruffs it. What do you do?

Your hand is

J AQ3 - J and dummy has 9 5 - 94










Did you ruff with the jack, as the player at my table did? You have overruffed Floyd McWilliams -- which is wrong! Declarer started with six spades and four hearts; he has two hearts left. If you ruff with your trump, you are out of trumps and declarer can get a heart ruff in dummy for down one. If you pitch, declarer must lead a heart or a trump from hand. If he leads a heart, you can win the queen and pull dummy's last trump. Declarer must lose his other heart for down two. If he leads a trump you can play the jack of clubs just in case declarer somehow has the king of hearts. (In real life partner has it.)

I was declarer on this hand. When the third diamond was led I had to hope trumps were 2-2. When they weren't, I was screwed. But I figured my LHO would not be able to resist overruffing the diamond. Down one was an average; down two would have been a very good score for the defenders.

In general when you have the master trump and declarer and dummy have trumps, it is right to wait to get in so you can pull two trumps for one.