Backed up in my bank of fun hands is this little nugget.
Playing some boring 2 Spade contract suddenly got interesting when I discovered how brilliant my partner was being.
Good defense thrives on the declarer's 'sins.' Although this isn't anything that would knock you into the 9th level of hell, it's still kinda interesting (however basic).
The auction is simple. South opens 1NT, North transfers to spades and passes.
My partner leads a low spade to:
Declarer sticks in the 10, followed by the Jack (from me) to declarer's king.
Declarer plays another spade to the Ace, both of us follow low.
Declarer now plays a low diamond from dummy, followed by my 2, declarer's King, partner wins the Ace. We play upside down so the the 2 is either from xx (bottom of a doubleton) or from a stiff. Partner cashes the Queen, sees my second diamond, showing count, and returns a diamond which I ruff with my Queen of spades.
After this we take the remaining tricks we are entitled to: a high spade, 2 hearts and one club.
All 4:
My partner was very astute to reason that there was a good chance I had 3 spades, but more importantly that if I had a third spade, we needed to win them separately.
The hand is always down 1 according to The Sheet, but by winning an extra spade trick, we scored a top with down 2.
There are several ways declarer could have played this hand better.
Declarer is probably better sticking in the 8 or 7 on opening lead. There's some guesswork to be done with spades but the 9 becomes an important card which will have to be found at some point. The Q and J are *supposed to be on opposite sides so you don't immediately gain from forcing one out - better to hope to find the 9. And if you're hoping the 9 falls, maybe it's better to just play low.
Stuck with 874 of trump in dummy, it's tough to play for spades to be 3-3 but then again, you're losing them both anyways. If they break, they break, if they don't, they don't.
A good rule is to draw trump unless you have a reason not to. Well, this is actually a good hand where you have a reason not to. That club suit is pretty junky and declarer should try to ruff out the two losing clubs BEFORE messing around with trump. Even after playing the second round of trump, declarer can try to set up some club ruffs. Lefty will show out on the fourth club and can ruff high but it doesn't help.
After each club ruff, cross your fingers and hope you can pick up the diamond suit.
If everything goes as planned, declarer picks up the top two spades, the Ace of clubs, two club ruffs, the Ace of hearts and 2 diamonds. Unfortunately it doesn't go as planned with the diamonds being hateful, but these are your tricks on this hand.
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