The foxes and the hounds

by Jos Jacobs

In the quarterfinal between the Netherlands and Indonesia, Willem Boegem for the Netherlands showed his skill in declarer play on the board below.

Board: 12. Dlr: West/NS
	♠ A 10 9 5 ♥ 10 9 8 2 ♦ Q J 3 ♣ Q 9
♠ J 7 ♥ Q 6 ♦ K 10 8 5 2 ♣ 10 5 4 2		♠ K Q 4 2 ♥ 5 4 ♦ A 7 6 4 ♣ A 8 7
	♠ 8 6 3 ♥ A K J 7 3 ♦ 9 ♣ K J 6 3

In the Open Room, the experienced old foxes Manoppo-Lasut, who have made it a tradition to always play North/South for Indonesia, bid as follows:

Open Room

In his unambitious but quite normal contract, Lasut lost two aces and two spades to just score his nine tricks, for +140 to Indonesia.

Closed Room

Onno Janssens also raised his partner’s overcall to three but this inspired Boegem to bid game. Probably, he judged that his 5-4-3-1 distribution might be worth an extra trick. In fact, experience shows that this is quite often the case, contrary to your average fate when holding 5-4-2-2.

Anyway, this contract can be beaten in various ways but the defenders have to be careful. If West had found the lead of the ♠J, we would have no story. An imaginative ♦10 would be as good a start for the defence as anything, as it prevents the ♦Q J to take part in a loser-on-loser play. However, on winning his ♦A, East should return a low spade rather than a diamond to still make the defence prevail easily. The return of the ♠K might not be good enough, as we shall see soon.

On a low diamond lead, declarer might play low from dummy. Now, East’s only chance is a low spade after winning the ♦A. The ♦Q J will be used to throw two losing spades for the loss of just one trick if East fails to find the spade shift.

“Why would a top spade not be good enough?,“ one might ask. Willem Boegem will be quick to show you why as this is exactly as things went at his table. Bambang Hartono led a low diamond and Munawar Sawiruddin won the ace. He returned the ♠K which held the trick. Now, a low spade would still beat 4♥ as the ♣A remains there as an entry to cash one more spade. However, when Boegem played the ♠6 and Hartono the ♠7 to the first spade trick, things were not completely clear for East who thus continued with a safe-looking diamond. Declarer ruffed this and took his only chance: a direct finesse of the ♣9. When this worked, he landed his contract, after some anxious moments before playing for the hearts to be 2-2. Plus +620 earned the Netherlands another 10 IMPs.

On the next board, Munawar missed a great chance to shine in an “illegal” slam:

Board: 13. Dlr: North/All
	♠ J 4 3 ♥ 8 2 ♦ A Q 8 5 ♣ 9 6 3 2
♠ K 9 5 2 ♥ A 7 4 3 ♦ 6 3 ♣ K Q 7		♠ A Q 8 7 6 ♥ 9 ♦ J 9 4 ♣ A 10 8 5
	♠ 10 ♥ K Q J 10 6 5 ♦ K 10 7 2 ♣ J 4

Over West’s cuebid, East/West quickly reached their proper spot and made 11 tricks, Netherlands +650.\

Closed Room

All the diamond bidding by East, no matter what it may have meant, well and truly talked Boegem out of the diamond lead forever. Apart from that, he seems to have a fully natural heart lead, one might say. So dummy won the ♥A and now, Munawar had to judge his chances. The proper plan looks to try a dummy-reversal line, ruffing all three hearts in hand and postponing most part of drawing trumps. However, if trumps break 2-2, it might save you many a headache if you know that “they”will no longer be lurking for an overruff. So Munawar ruffed a heart, cashed the ♠A and crossed to the ♠K, a fatal error when South showed out. The fall of the ♠10 might have guided him into the right line by adopting the “restricted choice” principle to it. Cross to ♣K, ruff a heart, cross to the ♣Q (thank you for the jack) and ruff the last heart. Now, it’s safe to cash the ♥Q, getting the news. As two more clubs will live up now, you can throw a diamond, concede a diamond and score dummy’s last two trumps for your 11th and 12th tricks and an overall swing of 26 IMPs: 13 in instead of 13 out.