Card Reading in the Blue Ribbon Pairs

At the end of the first day of the Blue Ribbon pairs, Gail Greenberg and I were winning the event.  We maintained our lead at the end of the first semi-final, and this hand came up in the second semi-final.  We were playing against an unknown foreign pair.

My 1NT rebid showed a balanced 12-14HCP with presumably a spade stopper.  Gail's 2NT raise was slightly aggressive.  But, I was blessed with a friendly defense.  The opening leader apparently led his 4th best spade, but, after long thought, decided to let dummy's ªQ win the second trick.  The defender obviously would have been better placed to win the ªK and continue with the ª10 to force out my jack.

What do you do now?

What motivation could West possibly have to let you win the second trick?  I decided that he didn't think he had an entry and was hoping that his partner held a third spade to return to him.  This should not be possible, if East was leading standard signals.  The ª3 at trick 2 should be either his last spade or his original 4th best.  In all cases, I decided that East probably held the §K and ©K.  Since East didn't open the bidding, I figured that West probably held the other missing honors.  And West seems scared to lead clubs, into my bid club suit.

Furthermore West has 5 spades, and presumably about 2 or 3 hearts, 2 or 3 or 4 diamonds, and about 3 or even 4 clubs.  I judged that West has 2 hearts about 60% of the time, and 3 hearts about 40% of the time.  The ©10 is probably in the East hand.

I judged to lead the ©9 from dummy at trick 2, and finesse.  I figured that if it lost, West would probably continue spades, so I would still be safe in the club suit.  And I figured that it was likely to win.  And it did. 

When I continued with the ©4 to the ©A, West discarded a club.  Apparently West began with 5 spades, 1 heart, and 7 cards in the minor suits.

Now I was able to scramble 9 tricks.  I could have continued with the ¨2, planning on playing the ¨9 in dummy if West plays low, and then setting up a third heart trick (I need an extra entry to dummy in order to set up another heart trick).  But I was very happy with my result so far, and chose not to risk: 1)West making the highly unlikely play of rising with the ¨Q when I led the ¨2 and effectively block the suit (I would have to win the trick with the ace and could never return to dummy to win a 4th diamond trick), or 2) West began with 4 diamonds headed by the Queen (when West began with 4 diamonds, I block myself in the diamonds and only get 3 diamond tricks if my first diamond play is low to the ¨9).   However, the club discard from West made the club suit less of a threat.  West, presumably, still held 3 spades, and East still held 3 hearts.  I chose to lead the ¨K first, and then the ¨J.  This gave the defender no chance to block me from taking 4 diamond tricks, and, when the diamonds broke 3-3, gave me a 100% method of taking 9 tricks.  I merely cashed the 4 diamond tricks, cashed the club ace, and let either defender win the next 2 club tricks.  That defender now had to play a major suit to give me my 9th trick.  It is unusual to have an endplay, where you don't care which defender wins the trick, because either defender must give you an extra trick.

This was the entire hand:

This hand is a good example of how important it is to get into the heads of your opponents.  The opponent's cards were just about exactly how I expected them to be, after the play of the first two tricks.