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Kx
x
xx
AQT98xxxBasically the contract hinges on picking the diamond suit up for no losers. Obviously taking a straight spade finesse will work here as you'll get 3 pitches on the AJT of spades and then can ruff dummy's last 2 diamonds, but that's not a reasonable line of play. Given the preempt, south is a favorite to have diamond length. So, I think I'm going to eventually play the ace of diamonds and then finesse south for the Q. But to try to get more of a count of the hand, I decided to ruff a couple of spades in my hand. When the K fell on the 2nd round, I thought I had a whole count on the hand. North must be 2-1-3-7. So, after pulling the last trump, I cashed the king of diamonds and played low to the ten. No one else in middle Georgia would have found that line of play, but I am convinced it is correct. It just happens to be wrong when north preempts 3C on an 8 card suit.
As a side note, it would be the right play to play the K of spades from Kxx or Kxxx. North knows west's shape is 1-5-5-2 and setting up 2 spades can't possibly help declarer, so he might as well try to mislead declarer about his distribution in case there is a guess in diamonds.
Ah, the bad beat story--or as Reese would have called it, another "unlucky expert" play.
ReplyDeleteDid South high-low on the first two tricks? If not, it is pretty reasonable to expect QJx with South and AT98xxx with North...I am sympathetic. At least your opponents didn't turn to you and say "Eight ever, nine never!"
he played his low one at trick one, but they were not people you could expect any kind of reliable count signal from.
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