The Full Deal
Oops, a 5-0 trump break; that’s about one-in-25 according to the textbooks. Above is the actual auction at our table. The defense started with three rounds of hearts; South ruffed with the nine and was over-ruffed with the ten. Afterwards, South lost tricks to the King of clubs and King of trumps, ending down one. Minus 100 scored 77% because there were lots of 170s for EW (spade part-scores, making ten tricks). This was an unusual layout; looking at the NS cards only, we would expect three diamonds to make or be down one most of the time, and we would expect EW to take eight (perhaps nine) tricks in spades most of the time. So we expect that competing to three diamonds stands to win matchpoints more often than not.
Bonus from Val: Did you spot West’s mis-defense? West should discard on the third round of hearts instead of over-ruffing; now West will make three trump tricks instead of only two. Minus 200 would have been only 13% for NS (87% for the defenders). Deal C102.
To explore alternative lines of play and defense, use this link: https://tinyurl.com/5khpwdmw