whaack

This hand is from BridgeMaster Intermediate A-17. My hand viewer messed up, the hand was played in 3NT by south and it was West who bid 2♠.

LHO leads the J ♠ Plan your play.

It's easy enough to see you must duck the first spade. If you win with the queen and take a club finesse and it loses, as it rates to do, RHO will lead back a spade, finessing LHO's ten against your remaining king, and you'll lose 5 spade tricks for down 2.

Let's take a moment to dive deeper into why ducking here is the right play. Fundamentally the reason ducking works is because it prevents the defense from simultaneously establishing the spade suit and keeping east's entry. If you win the first spade trick, the way the 6 spade tricks are divided between you and the opponents are you-opp-opp-opp-opp-opp. If you duck the first spade trick, the way they are ordered are either opp-you-opp-opp-opp-opp or opp-opp-you-opp-opp-opp. After declarer ducks, west faces a fatal dilemma. The earliest he can establish the spades is on the third trick of the suit. He needs to attack spades again before south can setup his clubs, but if he does, - either by playing ace and another or just a low card - east will lose his only remaining entry. If the club finesse be needed to be taken in the other direction, it would be wrong to hold up, because then the declarer could bang down the ace and another spade and establish his suit with declarer's losing finesse as west's entry.

After ducking the spade west does well to switch to a heart, knowing that his dreams of establishing his spades are over. Declarer's problems persist because he still needs that spade trick that conceded on the first trick. He can win the heart and setup his clubs, but when east wins the club king and returns a heart, declarer must duck again. Declarer still only has 8 tricks off the top, and he must develop that spade trick without losing two heart tricks. After winning the third heart trick, declarer sets up his spades. Now if east has 4 or more hearts then after declarer takes his heart return declarer will establish his 9th trick in spades, and west will have no entry to cash the last heart trick. If hearts were 4-3 with west having the 4 hearts, then there is nothing to be done.¹

Could it have been right for south to duck the first round of hearts? This will prevent east from returning a heart after winning the club should he have started with 2 and west with 5. But then the defense could switch to attacking diamonds , presenting declarer with almost the same issue, but now down 2 tricks? Now declarer certainly can't duck, and when when east wins his club he will play on diamonds again, establishing a diamond trick for west and giving the defense 2 spades, 1 club, 1 heart, and 1 diamond trick. That said, it would be a spectacular defense to switch to a diamond and perhaps that would be a play that is in general losing. Still, I think it's best to capture the first heart trick and duck the second one.

1. Or is there? Perhaps there's a heart-spade squeeze. [↩]

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