Here’s an interesting hand - Hand 6 from Session 2 of the TBIB Festival Open Swiss Teams on June 28.
After E opened 1S with 11 points and six spades, S overcalled 2H and N with 17 points had a choice between 3NT and 4H. 3NT might have been the best contract with the lead coming from E into North’s lovely tenaces, but as it happened he bid 4H, and the opening lead was the singleton club.
The contract looks pretty safe. There are 3 clubs, 2 diamonds and a spade off the top, and 4 trumps look straightforward. The important thing to note is that E opened the bidding, so she is marked with pretty much all the missing points. That would suggest that the Ace of trumps is with E and so by leading trumps twice from dummy toward the KQ, E should be limited to only making one trump trick. So there’s our 10 tricks.
This event was played for IMPs rather than matchpoints, meaning overtricks are not important, but let’s imagine this is played in an afternoon duplicate session and you want to make as many tricks as you can. Is there a way to make 11? If E had not opened the bidding, you’d have the choice of 2 finesses - take your pick of playing the diamonds or spades. But E did open and so we know both finesses are guaranteed to fail, and can use that information to our advantage.
After winning the first trick in dummy with a high club, we lead a trump to our hand and E plays low. We then play a diamond to the A and repeat the move. Second time round there is no need for E to hold up the A, so they can take it and the safest exit card would be their final trump.
With all trumps gone, we can now eliminate the clubs first and then the diamonds, by playing our our remaining winners in those suits and exiting with the Jack of diamonds, knowing that E will win it with the Q.
What can E do now? As it happens, she only has spades left and needs to lead away from her K into dummy’s AQ for the 11th trick. But even if that had not been her initial distribution, it would have made no difference - if she had had extra clubs or diamonds, a lead of one of those would have given declarer a ruff and a discard. In other words, declarer would have been able to throw away his losing spade in his hand, and ruff the trick in the other hand with the last trump.
This is a pretty simple example of an end-play, where declarer can make a contract or overtricks by “throwing in” a defender at the perfect time, so that any card they lead back is guaranteed to give declarer an extra trick. In the most basic cases, the pattern is as follows: draw trumps while retaining at least one trump in both hands, eliminate side suits by playing winners and ruffing/discarding losers until both hands are void of that suits, and then losing the trick to a defender at the right time.
Sometimes, as here, clues from the bidding help you plan the play. Other times there may be no clues, but no other line of play that might make the contract.
For those less experienced players who don’t quite follow, let’s look at this more closely. Imagine these are the last 3 tricks in your hand, hearts are trumps with none outstanding, and a defender is on lead:
N ♠ A9 ♥ 7
S ♠ 43 ♥ 5
If they lead a spade, you make two of the last three tricks, your A of spades and a trump, but you will lose a spade.
But if they lead a minor suit, you can win all three tricks. As you are void in both hands, you can ruff in one hand and throw out a small spade in the other. This enables you to play your two trumps on different tricks, rather than on the same trick, as you would otherwise.
What does this mean as defenders? In a perfect end-play, you’re stumped - any card you lead will give declarer an extra trick. But many times we are on lead with a choice of cards, and can avoid leading a card that gives away an undeserved extra trick. I’d encourage you to try to minimise situations where you allow declarer to make a ruff and a discard. You can always see if dummy is void in a suit, and in many cases there is nothing wrong with leading that suit and making dummy ruff. The key is to be confident that declarer still has cards in that suit, because as illustrated above, this will allow him to throw away a loser and play two trumps on separate tricks that otherwise would have had to be played at the same time.