Tuesday, September 16, 2014

An Unusual Safety Play

[This hand reminds me of a quote attributed to Bobby Fischer, which says to keep looking even when you have found a good move]

Playing a team game, you are the dealer holding A42, K974, -, KJ8642.

You open 1C, LHO bids 2D alerted as majors. Partner does not hear the alert and bids 2H. RHO bids 4S. Your agreement is that 2H is a limit+ in clubs, so you bid 5C, and this gets doubled by RHO.

LHO leads the DK and you see:



Apparently LHO forgot their system, but that is irrelevant to the hand now. You have to try and make 5C doubled.

[Click next in the above diagram to see the cards played so far]

You ruff the DK with the C2 and play the club 4, club 9 from LHO, club Q from dummy and RHO wins the CA. RHO returns the DJ, which you ruff.

A safety play looks apt for this hand.

You could try to cater to RHO having 4 clubs, by playing a heart to the dummy and playing a club to the 8.

But there is a better play.

If you play a heart to the A, and RHO discards, you must play another heart!

If you don't, clubs might well be 3-2, and a heart ruff will be your setting trick: LHO will win the C8 with the CT and won't have any trouble returning a heart.

Playing the second heart extracts the last heart from LHO (an unusual form of Dentist's coup), and now even a 3-2 break won't get you down. You play the second heart and if that is not ruffed, play a club to the 8 (there is no problem if your heart gets ruffed).

This is an unusual hand: you make a safety play guarding against an even trump break by playing an extra round of a suit where you know the opponent is void!

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