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At a recent Tuesday evening session at the club, board 12 contained the following 4 hands:
N
S AQ43
H J 9
D JT8
C Q965
W E
S KJT5 S 986
H T3 H K752
D KQ643 D 72
C JT C A742
S
S 72
H AQ864
D A95
C K83
At game all West was the dealer and after 3 passes South opened 1H. West overcalled 2D and North made a classic negative double. East passed and South simply corrected to 2H. North could see no reason to push for game and South played in the part score contract.
The Jack of Clubs was led and taken by South’s King. South then played a Spade to North’s AQ taking the finesse. This was followed by the Jack of Hearts (not covered by East **) and then the Heart 9 to the Queen dropping West’s ten. At this stage South, concluding that West had no more Hearts, played the Club 3 and noting the play of West’s ten, covered with the Queen. This was taken by East’s Ace (best defence).
At this stage East, mindful of his partners bid, and perhaps reasonably expecting West to be holding AQ of Diamonds having not led them, led a Diamond in the confident expectation of picking up a further 3 tricks for the defence.
The stage is now set for the trump coup, which as the reader will know, refers to the situation where the perpetrator of the coup (or his dummy) is sitting directly over a defender with his trumps in a favourably disposed position but having no means of conducting a standard finesse to pick up defender’s trump suit without loss. To do this declarer needs to engineer an end-play where the victim is stripped of his outside suits and, with only his 2 trumps left, is then forced to play first to the penultimate trick.
In the present situation this requires only that East has 4 Clubs with 2 or more Spades which on the bidding and the fall of the cards is a virtual “bridge certainty” .This allows the danger hand to be safely stripped of its Clubs and at the same time provide South with a discard for one of his Diamond losers. A Spade can then be ruffed as a means of reducing the number of South’s trumps to equal those of East. In this example, it then only remains for South to exit with his remaining (Diamond) loser at trick 11 and claim the last two tricks.
In detail, South plays the Diamond Ace, cashes the Club 8, and plays his remaining Spade to the Ace. He then draws East’s remaining Club with the 9 ditching a Diamond in hand. At trick ten a Spade is ruffed and a Diamond exit to West leaves East helpless. With the Ace and 8 of Hearts sitting over East’s King and 7, South makes his coup and emerges with a total of 11 tricks.
East should have returned a Spade when in with the club Ace and so limit South’s tricks to ten. This play is far from obvious when the alternative Diamond lead not only carries with it the strong likelihood of 3 further defensive tricks but is also of course much easier to justify in any subsequent post mortem!
So whilst best defence can seemingly hold declarer to 10 tricks, I am indebted to my partner Ken Ballans for pointing out that on the Jack of Clubs lead and double dummy declarer play thereafter, 11 tricks can be made against ANY defence.
Can you, the reader see how?
NOTE ** As the cards lie covering the Jack does not help the defence and the trump coup remains as a viable option
N
S AQ43
H J 9
D JT8
C Q965
W E
S KJT5 S 986
H T3 H K752
D KQ643 D 72
C JT C A742
S
S 72
H AQ864
D A95
C K83
At game all West was the dealer and after 3 passes South opened 1H. West overcalled 2D and North made a classic negative double. East passed and South simply corrected to 2H. North could see no reason to push for game and South played in the part score contract.
The Jack of Clubs was led and taken by South’s King. South then played a Spade to North’s AQ taking the finesse. This was followed by the Jack of Hearts (not covered by East **) and then the Heart 9 to the Queen dropping West’s ten. At this stage South, concluding that West had no more Hearts, played the Club 3 and noting the play of West’s ten, covered with the Queen. This was taken by East’s Ace (best defence).
At this stage East, mindful of his partners bid, and perhaps reasonably expecting West to be holding AQ of Diamonds having not led them, led a Diamond in the confident expectation of picking up a further 3 tricks for the defence.
The stage is now set for the trump coup, which as the reader will know, refers to the situation where the perpetrator of the coup (or his dummy) is sitting directly over a defender with his trumps in a favourably disposed position but having no means of conducting a standard finesse to pick up defender’s trump suit without loss. To do this declarer needs to engineer an end-
In the present situation this requires only that East has 4 Clubs with 2 or more Spades which on the bidding and the fall of the cards is a virtual “bridge certainty” .This allows the danger hand to be safely stripped of its Clubs and at the same time provide South with a discard for one of his Diamond losers. A Spade can then be ruffed as a means of reducing the number of South’s trumps to equal those of East. In this example, it then only remains for South to exit with his remaining (Diamond) loser at trick 11 and claim the last two tricks.
In detail, South plays the Diamond Ace, cashes the Club 8, and plays his remaining Spade to the Ace. He then draws East’s remaining Club with the 9 ditching a Diamond in hand. At trick ten a Spade is ruffed and a Diamond exit to West leaves East helpless. With the Ace and 8 of Hearts sitting over East’s King and 7, South makes his coup and emerges with a total of 11 tricks.
East should have returned a Spade when in with the club Ace and so limit South’s tricks to ten. This play is far from obvious when the alternative Diamond lead not only carries with it the strong likelihood of 3 further defensive tricks but is also of course much easier to justify in any subsequent post mortem!
So whilst best defence can seemingly hold declarer to 10 tricks, I am indebted to my partner Ken Ballans for pointing out that on the Jack of Clubs lead and double dummy declarer play thereafter, 11 tricks can be made against ANY defence.
Can you, the reader see how?
NOTE ** As the cards lie covering the Jack does not help the defence and the trump coup remains as a viable option
Trump Coup with a Puzzling Sequel
By Mike Crook