Brighton Day 3 - playing hands for fun and adjustment

Two rulings today involved curious problems in working out how many tricks the players would make (or did make).

One hand declarer said he had made 11 tricks after entering a score for 10 tricks. The TD was trying to deal with three things at once and when they caught up with the defenders they said spmething to the effect of “oh let them have their 11 tricks if they want it so badly”. So perhaps they did not really think they had conceded 11 tricks or perhaps they knew they really had conceded 11 tricks but hoped noone would have to find out how. We looked at the hand and could only see 10 tricks, so the TD went back to the declarer and they described how the defence had contrived to play all their high spades and allow ♠7 to make in dummy for the eleventh trick. So my first instinct was right; “oh let them have their 11 tricks ...” meant yes it was 11 tricks, but we don't want to talk about it!

The other hand involved working out how many tricks West would make playing in clubs.

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

Say North leads ♥A and continues with ♥K and gives South a ruff; the defence still have a trump trick. South can see the diamonds are blocked so now is the best time to play ♠A and another. Perhaps declarer will cross to ♦A and play the last round of hearts while there are still trumps in West. South ruffs with ♣K in front of West but is that the last trump trick? We thought South had to give the lead to dummy with a spade ruff or ♦K and so declarer could take the club finesse, but then we realised that East would only have clubs left and could not even under-ruff to lead the leave in West. Other lines, where the defence do not crash ♥Q are just as bad: an adjustment to 7 tricks in clubs (at least some of the time) was not good for East/West.

No chance to see the Olympics closing ceremony — not sure whether there will be time during the week to catch up on iplayer.