By Phillip Alder

THEY CAN’T WIN TRICKS BUT SERVE A PURPOSE

Occasionally a deal will come along in which you must cling like a barnacle to a collection of low cards in one suit even though you know that none will ever win a trick. Does that sound impossible? Read on!

In an international team event, only one pair reached the borderline six-diamond contract, via the given auction. They held only a combined 23 high-card points, but five heart tricks would be enough to bring home the slam. (Note that if either North has the heart jack extra or South has three spades and two clubs, the slam is almost laydown.)

West led a top club and switched to the spade queen. South won with the ace and ran off six rounds of diamonds. West discarded four clubs and one of his “useless” hearts. Now it was easy for South to play hearts from the top and claim when the jack dropped.

Suppose instead that West defends better, keeping all four of his hearts. Even though the percentage play in hearts is to play off the king, ace and queen, South will probably be aware that West has kept four hearts. If so, there are 10 low doubletons that East could hold and only five jack doubletons. So it is twice as likely that West has jack-fourth than four low cards.

If South thinks this way, he will cash the heart king and play a heart to dummy’s 10, going down with the actual distribution.

When you have length in a suit where an opponent is also long, always consider keeping your holding intact if you can.