39th World Team Championships Page 5 Bulletin 7 - Saturday 5 September 2009


Double Dummy Dilemma

by Barry Rigal

Board 6. Dealer East. E-W Vul.
 ♠ 2
Q J 6 4 2
10 2
♣ A Q J 10 4

♠ A 7
A 10 8
K 9 5
♣ 9 8 6 3 2
Bridge deal
♠ K Q 10 9 6 4
3
A 8 7 3
♣ K 5
 ♠ J 8 5 3
K 9 7 5
Q J 6 4
♣ 7

WestNorthEastSouth
  1♠Pass
1NTPass2♠Pass
4♠All Pass   

I know my limitations. When P-O tells me he cannot solve a double-dummy problem I should not even bother to look at it but should go straight to Deep Finesse; however I foolishly wasted an hour before surrendering. And the play is indeed stimulating; do you want to play or defend four spades?

Let’s do the simple stuff first; on a heart lead you could arrange to draw trumps via the finesse and then cross to the diamond king to play a club up. So the defence take their club ruff at the first two tricks. What now?

If you do not play a trump, declarer arranges a diamond ruff in dummy with the low trump (we are playing double-dummy!) so South must shift to a trump at trick three won by East in hand. Now declarer cannot duck a diamond to North or a club back starts to re-promote a trump for South. East must ruff high but can no longer ruff a diamond in dummy without letting the ♠J score a trick. If East ducks a diamond to South then a second spade kills the ruff and there is no pressure.

How about double squeezes? Connoisseurs of the genre will note that with both club and diamond menaces offside no double squeeze works. Instead, at trick three, win in dummy and cross to the spade ace, ruff a club high and lead the third and fourth trumps.

  ♠ -
Q J 6 4
10 2
♣ Q J

♠ -
A 10 8
K 9 5
♣ 9 8
Bridge deal
♠ K 6 4
3
A 8 7 3
♣ -
 ♠ J
K 9 7
Q J 6 4
♣ -

When East leads the spade king South follows and the first critical moment is reached; dummy MUST discard the diamond nine and North pitches a heart. (The reason why you need to unblock the diamond nine is that North may be forced to discard a diamond later on, and then you will need to be able to cash the diamond king and exit with the diamond seven to endplay South that requires the diamond nine to no longer be in dummy. If you do not unblock that card South MUST pitch the heart king on the next trump and declarer can not succeed no matter what he discards from dummy. If you pitch a diamond, North throws a heart and although that lets you establish a heart you cannot get both diamond tricks since the suit is blocked.)

After West’s discard of the 9 declarer leads his fifth trump. South pitches a low heart, dummy throws a diamond, and North has to come down to six cards. If he pitches a club declarer crosses to K ruffs out the club, cashes A, and takes dummy’s two winners. If he pitches a heart, declarer plays a heart up and arranges to duck the heart to South on either the first or second round. That forces South to play a diamond, letting West cash the two red-suit winners and leaving East with A and his trump to reach it.

What if South pitches the K? Dummy throws a club, and North cannot let go a heart or declarer establishes a long heart and cannot let go a diamond or South gets endplayed. Declarer takes the diamond king, plays A and ruffs a heart and is down to A87 with South having Q J 6; on the second diamond South is endplayed.

Accordingly, North pitches a club. Declarer cashes the two top diamonds, ruffs a club and leads a heart, covering South’s card, to endplay North in hearts!



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