Not Quite Impregnable by Beverly Kraft – Eric Kokish

When you bid like a cowboy, you’d better play like the king of the rodeo. South claimed he had to catch a flight and could not afford to waste any time in the auction, but better excuses have been made for lesser overbids at your club and ours every day. Dealer West. E/W Vul

	10 7 5 3 J 7 J 10 6 4 K J 6
K J A K Q 8 3 2 Q 8 5 4 3		8 6 4 Q 10 8 3 9 7 5 10 9 7
	A Q 9 2 K 9 6 5 4 2 A A 2

West	North	East	South
1	Pass	Pass	Double
2	Pass	2	4
Pass	Pass	Pass

Opening Lead: K Declarer took West’s K with the ace and led a low trump, catching the bare ace. West switched to a club, six, nine, ace. Declarer played the A and when the jack dropped, continued with the Q to West’s king. By now declarer knew the layout of the whole hand, but East’s Q108 of trumps seemed certain to produce two tricks for the defence; if declarer led the jack from dummy, East would cover and have the ten-eight to deal with declarer’s nine.

Back came a second club. Declarer did not need a third club trick to discard a loser so the finesse would appear to be a needless risk. In order to reach a winning end position, however, he saw that a third club trick was needed to discard . . . a winner. Although East’s apparently impregnable trumps could not be neutralised with brute force or a simple finesse, declarer had two ways to get home from this point. Choosing the more elegant, he won the J, ruffed a diamond, crossed to the 10, and ruffed another diamond, stranding the K. With his trumps shortened to the same length as East’s, declarer led the 6 to the jack. East won the queen and did his best by playing his remaining club. Declarer discarded his winning spade, won dummy’s king, and showed East the king-nine of trumps. Although dummy was out of trumps, either a spade or diamond lead at trick twelve would coup East’s ten-eight of trumps. Declarer was showing off. He could have avoided the last roundup equally well by simply cashing the K after the jack won, discarding a spade. Then, diamond ruff, spade to the ten, diamond ruff, trump to the jack and queen. East, with ten-eight of trumps, would have to lead one. Declarer, with king-nine remaining, would take the last two tricks by finessing.