Your lead partner (1)
by Jim Grant

These two hands appeared consecutively. Honours were even, as will be reported.

Hand 1

I read somewhere in the dim and distant past, that if you double a notrump slam, then partner should lead the first bid suit by your RHO. However, there's nothing like putting your partner on the spot to make the right opening lead after you've thrown in an overcall to lend a bit of confusion to the proceedings. At the club on a normal Tuesday Duplicate Pairs night, you hear partner pass and your RHO open 1 Club. Holding a decent hand with:

A
Q98654
Q1083
K7

You elect to bid 1 Heart. Some of you may decide that this hand counts as an intermediate jump overcall worth 2 hearts. However, you are playing with a new partner and you haven't had the opportunity to discuss the strength of jump overcalls. Besides, the heart suit could be more robust and you have quite a few useful looking cards for defence. More than a 2 heart call would usually show. LHO doubles (negative) and her partner replies 1 spade. LHO then bids 2 hearts so you realise now that the hand is not yours. RHO bids 3 clubs after which LHO pulls out 4NT and finishes in 6NT after a 5 diamond Blackwood response showing 1 ace. When the bidding comes back to you, you can sense defeat for declarer if that ace is the ace of clubs. This is highly likely because you have the ace of spades and RHO has repeated clubs to show five or more. Now is the time to re-emerge with the big red card with the small x on it since this calls for a club lead doesn't it?

Here is the full deal and the bidding (hand is rotated for convenience)

The Complete Deal

10875
732
64
9854
KQ2
AKJ10
AKJ92
2
Dealer S J9643
-
75
AQJ1063
A
Q98654
Q1083
K7


The Bidding

NORTHEASTSOUTHWEST
Pass11Double
Pass1Pass2
Pass3 Pass4NT
Pass5Pass6NT
PassPassDoublePass
PassPass

Partner leads...............a smallish heart, probably the top of nothing. OK, not the end of the world. It looks like East has been caught speeding so prospects still appear good. Your 9 of hearts goes to declarer's 10 so it's clear to you that declarer has AKJ10. However, its equally clear to declarer that you have the king of clubs. The king of spades is led which you win with the ace, and take stock.

Declarer has bid confidently and strongly so can be assured of having pretty much all the missing high cards. She isn't noted for a tendency to hog the play, so doesn't have four spades, and probably doesn't have 3 clubs, but is likely to have eight or nine red cards. So in addition to her good heart holding, she probably has four or five diamonds to the AK(J)xx. Obviously you will have to put declarer back in hand at the next trick, so will it be a diamond or a heart? Of course you have to consider what will happen after four more rounds of spades. What can you keep? How would the play go If you exit with a diamond and declarer wins with the ace? After the run of three spades, you can picture the last seven cards in your hand as either:

-
Q86
Q10
K7

or:
-
Q8
Q108
K7
On the last spade, you will still have to discard one more card. Not knowing what the exact position is in diamonds it would seem better to hang on to the heart suit. However, after you exit with a diamond to declarer's ace, and declarer runs the spades (while you retain 3 hearts, a diamond and two clubs), if declarer crosses to the king of diamonds, and plays the jack as well, you will be forced to make a discard from:
-
Q86
-
K7
while declarer has the luxury of holding either

-
AKJ
-
2
where you cannot retain the club guard and the heart guard after the jack of diamonds has been played, or:
-
AK
9
2

where the extra diamond trick provides declarer's twelfth trick.

Alternatively you could exit with a heart at trick three. This should prove unsuccessful aswell, since after declarer has taken four heart tricks, four spade tricks and lost a spade, this is likely to be the four card ending.

-
-
64
98

-
AKJ
2
-
-
7
AQJ
-
-
Q10
K7

With the lead in dummy, and declarer knowing where the king of clubs is (because of the double), it is merely a case of crossing to the ace of diamonds and cashing the king. If the queen of diamonds does not drop then declarer's best chance now is to play a club to the ace, hopefully felling the singleton king because south's last two cards are the diamond queen and club king. You cannot retain a guard in both clubs and diamonds. If the king of clubs does not fall when declarer plays the ace, then the diamond queen was always offside and the slam could never be made.

At the table, following the heart switch, declarer eventually chose a different line: that of cashing the spade winners and then finessing the jack of diamonds, which was of course successful.

What a pity north didn't find the club lead! Still, I can now tell you that 6NT Doubled, vulnerable and making, is 1680. I couldn't have even guessed before.

Hand 2

I did say honours were even. The next hand you pick up

AQ87
KQJ765
1076
-

and after East passes, you open 1 heart. LHO, passes and partner bids 1 spade. Joy of joys, you've found a fit, and to make sure partner is aware of that fact, you leap to 4 spades. After a brief consultation with his navel, partner now emerges with 6 spades which closes the proceedings.

East, chose the ace of diamonds for his opening lead, and that was that! Five spade tricks, six heart tricks and the king of diamonds.


The Complete Deal

KJ1043
A3
K85
J32
52
842
Q92
AK1087
Dealer E 96
109
AJ43
Q9654
AQ87
KQJ765
1076
-


The Bidding

NORTHEASTSOUTHWEST
-Pass1Pass
Pass1Pass4
Pass6 PassPass
Pass---

Of course the story is only complete when I mention that my partner was husband to one of the opposition, who, upon leaving the table was heard to say "I've got ace and king of clubs, nobody else will bid that!" Well done Dickie!


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