I’m sleep deprived, and so I apologize if this column sounds like the ramblings of a madman. I am now the proud parent of a baby girl.

I’ve never had more sympathy for my students.

My wife and I had so many good plans about how we were going to handle the first few months. As soon as baby girl arrived, those plans went out the window and it became a fight for survival.

I’ve seen this before in students who try to make a plan as declarer, but wind up losing the plot once the first road bump arrives. See how well you do on this deal which might throw a dirty diaper or two at your plans.

You are South. None vul, matchpoints.

A743
53
AJ103
A109

The auction goes:

West	North	East	South
2	Dbl	3	?

What will you do? We should bid 4. 3 would show some values, but we belong in game when partner has enough to make a takeout double. Best to just bid it. 4 ends the auction.

West leads the A.

Vul:None Dlr: S	DUMMY KJ65 K2 K952 K72
Lead: A
	Declarer A743 53 AJ103 A109

Make a plan as you see the dummy. West will continue hearts (West plays the 8, East the 9, then 2). You're in the dummy and have lost one trick already. What will you do?

4-4 fits are always a challenge. We can count losers from either hand. In this case, our hands are mirrored (same distribution in both hands) which is a bit unfortunate, but it means that we count one spade loser (usually), one heart loser (already gone), one potential diamond loser, and one club loser any way we look at it.

We suspect that we'll finesse through East for the Q, but there is no rush. Let's draw trumps. If they're 3-2, we might be able to get East or West to break some other suit for us by playing ace, king and another. We have to weigh that against the ability to pick up Qxx in the preempter's hand for no losers. Whatever happens, we're likely to get useful information about the distributions by playing trumps first.

With no useful spots to complicate things, we start with the ace and another spade to see if the queen shows up before deciding what to do. Uh oh. After trying the ace and another spade, West plays a heart on the second spade. There go our plans. What will we do now?

We re-count spades to two losers plus the heart we've already lost. That's not promising. The panicked action is to win and start taking finesses; trying to grab whatever tricks we can.

We need to fight that instinct.

If we win the K, we're going to have to guess what thing to do next. If, on the other hand, we let East win this trick, though, they'll have to play something. Anything East does is going to help us at least resolve a guess. The key is to simply play LOW (playing the jack makes it easy for East to continue spades).

At this point, the play gets complicated. Each suit East would play helps us: a spade means we have only one spade loser. A heart allows us to pitch a club loser. A diamond reveals that guess, and a club gives us the chance to pick up that suit.

So, we should duck this to East and let's pretend East exits the Q. We have to guess whether this is from the QJ or from Q doubleton or empty. QJ seems more attractive opposite a preempting partner, and so we'll win the K and try finessing East for the J later. We can afford to cash one high spade now just in case East does ruff a club. This will prevent East from ruffing and exiting a trump.

On this deal, we can try cashing a third club to potentially endplay West or find out more about the distributions. West shows out on the third club. What does that mean for us? Well if we're not exhausted already, we can realize that West started out with exactly: one spade, six hearts, and two clubs. That means that West has four diamonds and East only has one. We should guess the diamonds correctly and will only lose one heart and two spades.

We can take a look at all four hands right now with East on lead (after we found the key play of ducking the second spade) with 9 tricks to go:

Vul:None Dlr: S	KJ K952 K72
Q107 Q876 86		Q10 J 6 QJ543
	74 AJ103 A109

Even looking at all four hands, East's play is a headache. Our goal as declarer can be to transfer the pain to the defense. We may not make it, but we'll do much better than if we win the king and, say, try finessing diamonds through East because of the preempt.

Full deal:

Vul:None Dlr: S	KJ65 K2 K952 K72
2 AQ10876 Q876 86		Q1098 J94 6 QJ543
	A743 53 AJ103 A109

Notes on the defense/auction. West's 2 call is reasonable. Some would bid 3 with the extra shape. West didn't really have to lead the A, but the raise makes it reasonable with nothing else very attractive. East really is stuck after winning the spade. Test it for yourself.