This is a story from the Sunday 2 session pair event (on the last day of the recently concluded Seattle Nationals) where I played with Myti.
The deal is presented as a defense problem: both defensive bidding, and defensive play.
You hold:
S:KJT3
H:AQ83
D:KJ9
C:J7
Your side is Red, opponents are Black, and your Righty (me) opens 1 NT. Playing DONT over Strong NT, do you overcall?
The answer is somewhat immaterial; I would overcall 2 H in a heartbeat, even at these colors. That's me. You could choose the conservative path of passing. I wouldn't quibble with a pass. What would give the game away is agonizing. Say you agonize over the decision, and eventually pass (to make the situation same as the situation I faced; I was the Notrump opener). Lefty bids 2 club, Righty bids 2 Diamond, and Lefty rebids 2 NT, alerted as 'may not have a 4card major'. Righty ponders and raises to 3 NT.
What would you lead?
If I were defending this hand, I'll lead the Jack of Spade. Sure, sometimes dummy shows up with A98x and I've given an extra trick way, but I expect declarer's AQ to score 2 tricks most of the time, and I expect our side to get the 2 spade tricks that appear likely on the auction (since 2 D denied a 4 card major).
Again, to put you in the situation my opponent was in as defender,say you elect to lead "passive", the Jack of club.Dummy is as follows:
S:Q54
H:J76
D:A532
C:QT8
The jack of club is won by the Queen.
Declarer next plays the diamond ace and another diamond to his ten, your Jack.
You don't want to break a major suit as you can visualize the spade ace, heart king with opponent.
Accordingly, you cash your KD and exit a club. Partner pitches a discouraging spade on the KD.
Declarer wins the club continuation with dummy's ten, and proceeds to cash 2 more clubs, on which you can afford to let go of 1 card in each major. On the 4th club, declarer pitches a diamond in dummy, and then cashes the 4th diamond in his hand.
Dummy is down to:
S:Q54
H:J54
You are down to:
S:KJT
H:AQ8
Dummy is yet to make a pitch on the 4th diamond, but you have to pitch first. What do you pitch?
At the table, my opponent pitched a heart, bringing herself down to AQ H KJT spade.
I promptly pitched a heart in dummy and led towards Jx heart.
My last 5 cards were:
S:Ax
H:Kxx
Opponent can win QH and switch to spade NOW, and I put up the spade Q and force out the heart ace with the jack, scoring KH and AQ spade.
With 2 diamond tricks and 4 club tricks, that was 3 NT making.
Even if you cash AQH at one go, it doesn't help.
So why is this article on this blog with this title?
The heart discard by my opponent at trick 9( leading to the 4 card end position) is a purpose-less discard.
The correct and deservedly winning decision is to bring yourself down to KJ spade, AQ8 heart. Then, based on declarer's discard+play, you have a way out to get more than your 2 natural H tricks.
For example, say declarer pitches heart in dummy again, and plays heart towards the Jx. You take your AQ H and exit heart and wait to score your KS for the setting trick.
If declarer pitches heart and instead plays ace and out a spade, you win the spade King and place the QH on the table. Dummy has Jx heart and a good spade,but by leading Q and not low, you've killed the JH as an entry.Partner has kept T9x heart so partner guards the heart if declarer wins the king of heart and leads a heart back at you.
If declarer pitches spade in dummy and leads low towards Jxx heart, again, you win the QA heart and exit heart, waiting for your KS.
If declarer pitches spade in dummy and plays ace and out a spade, you win the king and lead low heart, letting the jack win.
As long as partner started with 4 spades, declarer cant win the heart in either hand gainfully, even if declarer had KTx Heart for example.
This was a little 'advanced' problem in end-play avoidance. My opponent wasn't up to the challenge, and let me make an unmakeable 3 NT.
This was my hand:
S:A7
H:K42
D:QT84
C:AK64
From the auction stage itself, I had decided to play my LHO for all the missing cards. The agony over my 1 NT opening was perceptible to all at the table, and I could not help bidding 1 for the road on end-plays that were bound to arise from such a lop-sided distribution of missing high-cards.
If you agonize over your call over the 1 NT opening from opponent (with the defensive hand) and elect to lead passive, you better find the right discard at the end :-)
The crux of LHO's (constrained by the opening lead) problem is to make a discard that LHO knows gives up something, but hopefully doesn't give up too much. And when you work out the holdings partner (with his admittedly scarce values) can contribute, there are a few "outs" partner can give you, if you find out the correct play of keeping the valuable 3rd heart as an exit card. Even when giving up a trick (in this case, the potential trick and suit blocking ability provided by the spade ten), the choice must be to find a purposeful way to give up a trick/potential trick: that's the name of the game.
On the surface, the discard at trick 8 looks like a choice between the devil and the deep sea. But sometimes, either the devil is better than the deep sea or vice versa :-).
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