Two Sides of the Same Story

One of the better played hands from the fourth qualifying session of the Open Pairs features USA's Billy Miller. This was the deal:

Board 10. Dealer East. All Vul.
	ª Q 10 8 7 © A Q J 6 ¨ J 2 § J 9 8
ª A K 4 © 4 3 ¨ 9 7 5 § A K 10 7 2		ª J 9 5 3 2 © K 10 9 5 ¨ A 6 4 § 6
	ª 6 © 8 7 2 ¨ K Q 10 8 3 § Q 5 4 3

West	North	East	South
Cheek		Miller
		Pass	Pass
1§	Pass	1ª	Pass
2ª	Pass	3©	Pass
4ª	All Pass

Aggressive bidding saw Billy and partner Curtis Cheek get to a low point-count game that many of the field stayed out of. South led the king of diamonds and, when Billy ducked, switched to his trump. Billy rose with the ace of trumps and played a heart to North's ace. Back came the ¨J. Declarer won the ace and played three rounds of clubs, pitching the diamond loser then ruffing. The club ruff was the key play on the hand. Next came the ©K and a heart ruff, followed by dummy's last diamond. Had North discarded, Billy would have been in a position to ruff low, ruff his last heart with the king of spades, and be in dummy to lead for the trump coup at trick twelve. In practice, North ruffed in with the queen and the heart went away, after which declarer's trumps were high. Note that the trump coup would not work without the earlier club ruff to reduce declarer's trump length.

If playing a trump coup can be quite pretty, defending against one is that little bit more so. Nick Krnjevic and Xun Zhang were defending against a spade partscore after this auction:

West	North	East	South
	Zhang		Krnjevic
		Pass	Pass
1§	Pass	1ª	2¨
Dble	Pass	2©	Pass
2ª	All Pass

West's double showed three-card spade support. Krnjevic led the king of diamonds and declarer won immediately and took the top clubs, pitching a diamond. Next he led a heart to the queen and king and crossed to the ªA to lead a second heart up. Zhang won the jack and returned the jack of diamonds. Krnjevic overtook and played another diamond. What should North discard?

Declarer is about to ruff the diamond, ruff a heart low, then ruff a club. After that a heart ruff with the ªK puts him in dummy for the trump coup and ten tricks. So Zhang threw the ace of hearts in the hope of drawing declarer away from the winning line. Sure enough, declarer ruffed the diamond but then ruffed the heart high, looking a bit put out when North followed. He could no longer play the trump coup and was held to nine tricks - a swing of quite a few matchpoints.