Awed by Colin

I had a very interesting day yesterday.  I played bridge for an hour or two with Colin before heading off to Medieval Times with Mark Horton and Ray to watch Claire the falconer (and our intern) and partake in all the other festivities. 

 

Medieval Times

Claire the Falconer having just sent her falcon off

Claire came to centre stage all alone with her falcon and sent it off on soaring flights in complete control of the large bird.   She was great.

But Colin is the real star of this Blog.  Colin reached 3NT in a straightforward auction where he opened 2NT and I gave him a choice of 3NT or 4♠ via a Jacoby auction.  The opening lead was the ♥3 (attitude) and this is what he saw

Linda

♠ AQ1074

♥ J4

◊ 10752

♣ 74

Colin

♠ KJ

♥ A92

◊ K64

♣ AKJ108

Colin played low from dummy and RHO played the ♥K.  Colin  had to decide what to do.  Do you duck or win?  Colin ducked and the ♥10 was returned which he won with the ♥A.  Colin should probably have played the ♥J at trick one in case LHO had underled the KQ?  I can’t think of a time it costs.  Colin now ran the spade suit throwing two clubs and a diamond from his hand.  LHO followed to the two spades and had to make three pitches as well.  He pitched two diamonds and then a heart.  On the last spade RHO pitched a diamond.  The AQJ of diamonds are still outstanding and no others.

Here is the ending:

Linda

♠ —

♥ —

◊ 10752

♣ 74

Colin

♠ —

♥ 9

◊ K6

♣ AKJ

Now you have several choices.  You can finesse the club, probably the most straightforward choice.  You can lead up to the diamond.  You can do what Colin did and play a club to the ♣A and then throw LHO in with a heart.  LHO had come down to three clubs queen and three hearts.

As it turned out if you do plan B, a diamond up, that will work too.  However, Plan A fails.  I have been thinking about the merits of each plan and how you can decide from the discards which works.  From the play and the lead LHO started with five or six hearts to the queen.  He has grimly held on to all his clubs while in the end throwing a heart.  From these discards (and given that he wasn’t Zia) Colin deduced that he had kept the third queen of clubs.  Since he can only have three other cards, whichever red cards he has whether all hearts or hearts and diamonds the defense cannot cash more than three red winners. 

It is interesting that once you place him with the three clubs to the queen you can fairly safely follow Plan B as well.  Let’s say you lead a diamond up.  If RHO has the ◊A then he can win but if he has a heart to return the defense still can only take three tricks.  If LHO wins the ◊A you are fairly safe since it seems impossible to me that his partner has the ♥Q the only possible entry to cash diamonds.  Eventually LHO will have to lead a club into your club holding.    The whole hand was

	Linda
	♠ AQ1074
	♥ J4
	◊ 10752
West	♣ 74	East
♠ 65		♠ 9832
♥ Q87653		♥ K10
◊ 93		◊ AQJ8
♣ Q63		♣ 952
	Colin
	♠ KJ
	♥ A92
	◊ K64
	♣ AKJ108

 

Very nice card reading Colin.  I wonder if Colin would have got it right if West had calmly thrown a club, a diamond and a heart or something like that.