Suppression

by Ted Muller

Contract: 6♠ by South

1. Declarer's Par  —  make the hand

A club lead (as good as any) goes to the ace.  Declarer optionally finesses one or two rounds of trumps, then leads the heart queen.  That card must be covered for the defenders to have any chance; otherwise, west can be subjected to a strip-endplay — that is, thrown in with his trump king and forced to lead a heart after his minor-suit cards are eliminated.

Declarer captures the heart king with the ace, ruffs a club, and cashes the jack of hearts.  Now, three rounds of diamonds are played off and dummy's last club is trumped in hand, to this position:

The heart deuce goes to east's ten, whereupon west's spade holding is smothered!  He cannot win a trick.  It makes no difference whether declarer finesses just one round of trumps early, or none at all.

2. Defenders' Par  —   win a trump trick

If the smother play can be circumvented, then west will score his trump king eventually; so the objective is for east to avoid being handed the lead at an inconvenient time, no matter what the cost.

Plan A:  Let's try the play again with a club out.  The defenders' principal strategy will be to sacrifice their heart trick!  West will not cover any heart leads from south, and east will discard a heart on any trump lead.  Those ploys prove inadequate, however.  After two rounds of spades and three winning rounds of hearts, a club is ruffed.  The queen of diamonds is overtaken by dummy's king and another club is ruffed, to this position:

Declarer cashes the ace of diamonds and underplays dummy's ten, as he is anxious to lose the next trick!  The third round of diamonds goes to east, who cannot unblock the suit, and once again west's trump holding is squelched.  Declarer simply transfers the endplay from hearts to diamonds.

Plan B:  What about an initial diamond lead?  Declarer's winning option is to play both the ten and the ace on the first trick.  After cashing the ace of clubs, he must test hearts first to learn how the defenders will handle that suit.  If they keep a stopper, declarer opts for the heart throw-in; if they unblock the hearts, then declarer goes for the gambit in diamonds.  The defense has no counter.

Plan C:  This time, east adopts a new tactic — he will discard two diamonds on trump leads.  Now, after declarer is permitted to win three heart tricks, east cannot be thrown in with a third diamond.  Yet declarer has an answer for that as well — he simply declines to finesse two early rounds of trumps!  Although he can afford one lead, it is unnecessary to play on spades at all until the end.  This denies east the opportunity to get rid of his diamonds.

Plan D:  One requirement of the trump-suppression matrix is that south's spade holding be reduced to the same length as west's.  Two club ruffs are necessary in order to mold the hands into the desired pattern.

And that's the key to a successful mission for east-west.  The requisite end-position can be thwarted by forcing out a dummy entry prematurely — that is, before the ace of clubs has been played off.  The opening lead must be the king of hearts!

This Merrimac Coup saves par for the defenders, and it is the only way to do it.  Now declarer must resign himself to (ho-hum) simply giving up a trump trick and claiming the balance.

Note: declarer could always deny west a trump trick, by refusing to win the opening lead of the heart king!  That would preserve the dummy entry and enable south to arrange a smother play after all; but in the process he would lose two tricks and go down, and that option was stipulated as unacceptable.

3. Bonus Teaser  —  swap the six and seven of hearts, then defeat the contract

The opening lead of a low spade enables east to discard a heart.  Now west can stop that suit even after covering south's honor-lead.  As east no longer can be thrown in profitably, a trump loser is unavoidable as well as a heart, and the contract fails.

East must be careful, however, not to discard his last heart on another trump lead; otherwise, west could be strip-endplayed just as if he had not covered the first heart honor.