At Sixes or Sevens

That we won our Silver Plate match against Anne Catchpole's team - Anne is the sister of Cambridge's Paul Fegarty - is due to a little luck and some solid declarer play by Victor Milman.

There was a little banter at the tea break regarding this slam deal which occurred in the first set.

In my room the contract was 6♠ by West and the lead was ♥Q. How would you plan the play?

♠AQ54		♠KJ83
♥AK1064		♥9
♦A6		♦KJ5
♣A6		♣K10754

Our table's auction was:

West	North	East	South
2♣ (1)	Pass	2♦ (2)	Pass
2NT (3)	Pass	3♣ (4)	Pass
3♦ (5)	Pass	3♥ (6)	Pass
3♠	Pass	4NT (7)	Pass
5♦ (8)	Pass	6♠	All Pass

(1) Benjimanised - showing various kinds of strong hand
(2) Forced
(3) Showing (ostensibly) 23-24 balanced
(4) Asking for majors
(5) Showing at lest one four card (or longer) major
(6) Showing spades
(7) Roman Key Card Blackwood
(8) Four keycards or one.

As dummy went down, Paul Lamford who was declarer said to his partner "Not tempted to try for seven?" Dummy muttered something about needing precise cards and then trailed off.

Paul won the opening lead in hand, ruffed a small heart on table and then cashed dummy's ♠KJ, both opponents following. A club to hand was followed by a second heart ruff with dummy's last trump - revealing the hearts to have started 4-3. Declarer now simply returned to hand with ♦A, drew the last trump and cashed his two heart winners and the minor suit kings for thirteen tricks.

As he took the last trick, Paul looked sternly at dummy, who quivered slightly.

This is undoubtedly a solid line of play at pairs where over tricks matter, but is it the best line in a small slam?

Hearts breaking 4-3 is a 62% chance and there are several additional chances even if they break 5-2 (assuming that spades break reasonably). One would be really unlucky to go down......

Victor Milman at the other table was also in 6♠ but this time played by East on ♣Q opening lead. Winning in dummy with the ace, he cashed ♠A, both opponents following, and continued with ♠Q. When trumps broke, he cashed ♣K and ruffed a club. In fact South had four clubs but also had the last trump, so dummy won this trick. Victor crossed back to his ♦K and ruffed another round of clubs successfully (establishing dummy' last club in the process). He followed with ♥AK, discarding the ♦J, ruffed a heart with his ♠J, drew the outstanding trump and claimed.

On this line of play, even if the third round of clubs had been over-ruffed, there was no way of preventing that ruff of the fourth round of clubs and establishing the suit for twelve tricks.

Now of course, there are distributions where Paul's line works better (notably in certain cases where clubs break worse than 4-2, and spades break 4-1) - but clubs breaking 3-3 or 4-2 is an 84% chance.

All much of a muchness, you may think - but Victor's line also seems to me have clear advantages if the spades prove to be 5-0 and the hearts 5-2 - certainly if the spade length is with South. Cashing the ♠A at trick two gives you more options of playing on cross-ruff lines if the bad break is revealed early, while ruffing a heart may prejudice your options.

Imagine the full deal had been:

	♠None
	♥QJ852
	♦10973
	♣QJ82
♠AQ54		♠KJ83
♥AK1064		♥9
♦A6		♦KJ5
♣A6		♣K10754
	♠109762
	♥73
	♦Q842
	♣93

 

After winning the opening lead with ♥K, you cash the ♠A and receive the bad news, North throwing a diamond. You next cash the three other aces in your hand (in true palooka fashion), discarding dummy's ♦J  - you are going to establish dummy's fifth club to play through South, so you must under no circumstances throw a club! You now follow with a club to dummy's king and a third round of clubs. What is South to do? Wriggle as he may, he cannot stop you from making five tricks from your remaining seven trumps. Say he discards a diamond, declarer ruffs and plays a diamond back to table; a fourth round of clubs follows. If he discards once more, declarer can again ruff small and take three top trumps. If South ruffs in, declarer overruffs with ♠Q, crosses back to table with a trump and cashes his now established fifth club. South can at last make a trump trick - but it is the last one for his side, and the slam makes.

Epilog

Thre are a lot of permutations on this deal - on most normal distributions of the opposing cards, the contract will make with either line. For the less usual distributions, sometimes it works better to winthe first trump trick in the East hand , sometimes in West. I'll let the reader judge.......