Desperate Measures

Partner has overbid again and you find yourself in a contract that needs a miracle. Have you ever been in that situation? It happens to everyone; funny how it's always partner that seems to overbid. These contracts, in a way, are easier to play and can be fun. If you find yourself in that situation, try to visualize a particular distribution of the defenders cards that will allow you to make the contract --- and PLAY for it. If you go down a bunch, it's not going to affect your score that much since you're already too high.

Here is an example from a recent tourney:

	--- K8xx A8xx AT9xx
	AJxx AQTxx T K8x

We find ourselves declaring 7! after our LHO has overcalled spades (having passed as dealer). The opening lead is the K.

There are no immediate losers, but 13 tricks will be hard to come by. There is no place to park our losing club, we'll need to find an opponent with QJ doubleton or a singleton honor. There is still a lot of work to do in the meantime, we'll need to ruff our spade losers in dummy as well. To keep our club options flexible, we'll ruff diamonds as entries to hand to ruff spades. The first few tricks go quickly:

K, A(nice play), x, x
x, x, x, x
x, x, x, x
x, x!, x, x

That is a surprise; this means that LHO has 6 diamonds to go with (presumably) 5 spades. Now is the time to construct a layout that will allow us to make the contract; one that fits what we know so far. If RHO has all 4 hearts; we will have no chance (heart loser). If RHO has all 5 clubs; we also have no chance(club loser). We must hope that LHO is 1-1 in hearts and clubs and that the club is an honor. That only gets us part of the way there. We have to ruff 2 more spades in dummy, and we'll need two more entries to get back to our hand (one to ruff the 3rd spade, one to draw trump). We can't use our club entry, we need to finesse against RHOs honor. There is only one way: we have to hope RHO has the HJ - a pretty fair bet, and return to our hand in hearts. The play continues:

x, x, 8, T
x, x, T!, x (whew!)
x, x, K, K

Everything has gone according to plan so far. If the clubs come in -- we're home.

A, x, x, J!
x, x, 8, x
We claim the remainder with the top 2 trumps a good club and a good spade, +2210. This was a challenging hand, and needed quite a bit of luck. In real life, LHO's club was a spot, so I was doomed to fail (though a defensive error saved me). Knowing that going down in 7 would be a poor score, I took my only shot. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Here is another hand from last year's Collegiate championships:


	x xx KQxxx AQTxx	Kxx AQJT xxxx Kx

We are declaring 3N on a spade lead. RHO wins the ace and returns the suit. We need 8 more tricks and we need them now, as soon as we lose the lead the opponents will be able to set us. Clubs will provide 5 tricks, if they run, and if the heart finesse works, that's 3 more. There's a hitch though, we need to finesse hearts twice, but dummy only has one entry. We could hope that the HK is doubleton but that is strongly against the odds. There is another way, but it's not easy to spot because it goes against normal technique. Dummy does have 2 entries, in clubs! Lead the CK and overtake with the A (or low to the T). Finesse in hearts and then lead a club to the T. This requires Jxx of clubs onside, much better odds than Kx of hearts onside.

The next time you find yourself in a "hopeless" contract, don't give up. Look for a chance to make instead, no matter how remote, and play for it.