[jvage]

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W, N/S, IMP
This weekend I was called as a playing director on this board, where it seemed like the players were visitors from a certain North-London Club.

I don't know the bidding, but West was declarer in 3NT. North led a small club to the J and declarer cashed the ♣K at trick 2, a move she would later regret (South discarded 2 spades). She then led a diamond to the T, won at once by South, who switched to the ♥9. This went to the T and and Norths J. Instead of playing another heart North now switched to a spectacular ♠K! Declarer realised she was in trouble and thought for some time before/after winning the ace. Before declarer played to the next trick South now claimed the last trick for the ♥A, conceding 10 tricks to declarer! I'm guessing part of the reason for the claim was that he was unhappy both with partners spadeswitch and his own second spadediscard. This was not a very good claim for more than one reason, if Dummys clubs had been good South would never get the ♥A, and as it was declarer suffered some shortage of both entries and tricks. Understandably the players now agreed to call a Director. How would you rule?

North/South play standard methods, but low encouraging, as is standard here in Norway. I noticed that several declarers got too many tricks in NT on this board (around a third got 9 tricks), and my guess is that what made the defence tricky for some pairs was that South got no small heart to encourage or lead.

[lamford]

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This is the ending with the lead in West after five tricks, with the defence having won two. As there was a defensive claim, declarer gets his best and the defenders' normal line but there is no reasonable way to make it, so the contract is one down.

[Zelandakh]

lamford, on 2017-May-02, 04:03, said:

This is the ending with the lead in West after five tricks, with the defence having won two. As there was a defensive claim, declarer gets his best and the defenders' normal line but there is no reasonable way to make it, so the contract is one down.

You are probably right but I can think of a number of potential North's for whom it would not be at all unreasonable to throw 0 or 2 clubs, so perhaps we should hear about the level of this player before making a final decision.

[jvage]

Zelandakh, on 2017-May-02, 08:36, said:

You are probably right but I can think of a number of potential North's for whom it would not be at all unreasonable to throw 0 or 2 clubs, so perhaps we should hear about the level of this player before making a final decision.

While I know the declaring side very well (they are both recent juniors with ambitions for the national Open and Womens team respectively), I don't know N/S. Sorry, I only know they came well below average in this tournament, which was quite strong.

[jvage]

Due to timepressure (as mentioned I was also playing) I was far from sure I made the correct ruling here. In practice I allowed declarer to score 9 tricks (9 or 10 does not matter much for the score). There was no appeal.

What I considered possible is the very real endplay for the contract if North discards 2 hearts on the spades (+♦K). Since Dummy is void in hearts and has a threatening clubsuit this did not seem totally irrational to me. North is then endplayed with a small club (declarer keeping ATx in clubs in dummy and in hand Qx in hearts and a good diamond). North then needs to cash the ♥K (which it doesn't matter whether or not South overtakes) to keep the contract to 9 tricks.