Help
With about 8 boards left, my partner (Brad Moss) led the Queen of clubs against 6 hearts. Dummy had Kxxx of clubs and I had Axx.
I also had the A109x of spades sitting over dummy's Kxxx.
Declarer had shown a 2-suiter with hearts and diamonds, but I had no idea what his black suit distribution was. Dummy had (foolishly) jumped to 6H without bidding Blackwood.
So I had to decide whether to make the normal play of ducking the first trick or making the highly unusual play of overtaking with my Ace in order to (try to) cash my Ace of spades. This play would be necessary if declarer was 1-1 in the black suits as I could see that my Ace of clubs was ruffing out.
Nice problem to have!
I sat there for a good 5 minutes thinking about my trick 1 play. Of course, once I thought for more than a few seconds, this told my partner that I had the Ace of spades since there was absolutely nothing else I could be thinking about in this situation. As such, I could not hope that giving count in clubs and leaving it to Brad to work things out would do the trick - my hesitation had made it impossible for Brad to (cleanly) switch to spades.
Eventually I decided to duck the first trick. Much to his credit, Brad, who "knew the hand" now, continued clubs and the declarer (who really had 1-1 in the blacks) made his slam off 2 Aces.
The final result of the match was that our team lost by 3 IMPs!
If I had guessed right we would have won by over 20 IMPs. The same would be true if this absurd layout of the cards had not existed - on just about any distribution of the missing cards in the defenders' hands there would have been no chance for a misdefense.
If the opponents had not bid a slam off 2 Aces we would have won by about 10 IMPs.
Ever get the feeling that the great shuffler in the sky has dealt a hand for the purposes of laughing at you?
Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com