Coups and crashes

   by Kimmel C. Jones, Euless TX

Opportunities for clever ploys on defense rarely occur more than once on the same deal, but ...

This hand was dealt in a latenight matchpoint contest on Bridge Base Online (www.bridgebaseonline.com). I was East and my partner was Mike "JimmyOlson" Johnson. South wasn't exactly our strongest opponent in the event. That honor went to Mark Lair, whom we often encounter in these ACBL-sanctioned "play in your underwear" masterpoint games. In fact, I had played a different hand really well to earn a 12% score rather than a zero against Mark (my bidding had already done us in) on another deal from this session.

	Q5 J10752 A86 A97		East-West vulnerable   Matchpoints        North           East    Kimmel        South            West      Mike     Pass Pass 1S Pass 2H Pass 2S All Pass
J9        9863  KQ94      J62		643 A4              J1073 K853
	AK10872  KQ 62 Q104

I couldn't quite bring myself to balance when 2S was passed around to me, although it looks like we could compete in diamonds (and perhaps push them into their game).

Mike led the K, dummy won the A, and I encouraged with the 7. Declarer cashed dummy's Q, and it went 3, 2, J ! Clever Ploy #1 by Mike, as declarer now tried a "brilliancy" of his own. He led the 5 from dummy, I covered with the 6, and he took the "marked" finesse by playing the 7 from hand, losing to Mike's cleverly concealed 9.

Now, some smart aleck out there might point out that the dude didn't really need to finesse me for the 9 -- that he could have dropped it anyway -- but how boring is that when you can pull off such an incredibly deep finesse? My partners and I are always on the lookout for an opportunity to drop an unnecessarily high card and perhaps fool declarer into dumping us a trick, but it's sure been a long time since I recall one working out. How about you?

Mike's best defense, of course, is to find a club shift, except that would have deprived me of an opportunity to shine. Instead, he followed my  encouragement in diamonds by cashing the Q and playing a third round. Declarer ruffed the diamond and drew my last trump, Mike pitching  the 8 (odd-even discards). Declarer tossed a club from dummy and now led the Q around to my A.

The position at this point is:

	J1075     A9		I don't know the exact location of all the honors, but I realize that as long as the A remains in dummy, declarer will have an entry to the long hearts and be able to pitch his club losers. This position gives me the opportunity for Clever Ploy #2, but just as I reach to click on the K and  execute a brilliant Merrimac Coup ... my computer screen goes blank and my system crashes! By the time I got back on line, I found they had put in a sub who obviously didn't find the K return, and we end up going -170. That was still good enough for an 89% score on the board, but it sure was a disappointing time for a crash ... and it left us still searching for that elusive deal that will allow two defensive brilliancies instead of one and an "almost".
96  9      J62		4           J K853
	K10  K Q104