Plonk the Old-fashioned Way

Pages: Page 4 of 4

Dealer: South
Vuln: Love All
Scoring: Point-a-board
  1. spadeK Q 8 2
  2. heartK 6
  3. diamond9 5 3
  4. clubK 8 6 3
  1. spade—
  2. heartJ 8 3
  3. diamondK Q J 10 8 7 4 2
  4. club9 4
club diamond heart spade NT
N - - - 4 4
S - - - 4 2
E - 3 - - -
W - 3 - - -
Green square in centre
  1. spadeA 9 6 5 3
  2. heartQ 10 5
  3. diamond—
  4. clubA 10 7 5 2

Contract: 4diamondx
Declarer: West
Lead: spadeK
  1. spadeJ 10 7 4
  2. heartA 9 7 4 2
  3. diamondA 6
  4. clubQ J
Double dummy analyser: makeable contracts
West North East South
1heart
4diamond* Dble~ Pass Pass
Pass

* natural
~ Sputnik

South switched to clubQ and you can see what happened. Declarer won the ace, ruffed another spade, drew trumps and forced out heartAK for his tenth trick. How could South have known it was right to switch to a small heart? Well, North could have helped much more. He had the chance to signal for a switch to the higher of the two other suits in two ways. One, in spades by dropping the queen, but also in trumps by contributing the nine. I've always been a fan of Zia's suit-preference-in-trumps idea and maybe it could have helped here, although I doubt if North-South were playing this signalling method formally.

Maybe the old fashioned way of beating 4diamond is the best. North plonks heartK on the table at trick one!
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