In today’s online pairs game, each overtrick was worth its weight in gold. The defense had a few chances to hold me to 10 tricks — can you spot them all?
West led the heart ace and switched to the club queen. I won with the king and then played a club back to the 10, followed by the club ace. East ruffed in with the four, so I overruffed and played the spade ace and another spade. West stormed up with the spade king and got out with a safe club jack, but now I could ruff, draw the last trump and exit with the heart queen. If East won that, he would be endplayed to lead a red suit around to dummy. If he ducked, I could guess the diamonds for the same 10 tricks.
So, where did the defense go wrong? First, West could have switched to a low club rather than the queen. That would have blocked the suit for me. East might also have ruffed with the spade queen rather than the four, forcing me to guess whether to overruff and, if I did, what to do on the next round of trumps.
However, the final mistake was West’s. If West had (unnaturally?) ducked the second spade, I would have ruffed a club back to hand to lead another trump, allowing me to throw West in with the spade king.
I could have let go of a diamond on the third spade trick, but what would I discard from dummy on West’s club return? A heart would let East win the second heart trick and play one back, while a diamond discard would bare the queen in dummy, allowing East to exit with the diamond king.