Bath Coup Martin and Myself Are Currently Participating in the YCBA

08/06/2020 Hand of the Week 17: Bath coup Martin and myself are currently participating in the YCBA online simultaneous pairs event. A number of other pairs from the club are also taking part. Each round is an 8 board match played on BBO, with each pair playing 6 matches over 3 weeks. We drew a strong pair in the first round and after a heavy loss needed a good result in the second round. On board 4, after a fairly straight forward bidding sequence I ended up in 3NT and south lead Q: I should make 8 tricks off the top- 5 hearts, 2 clubs and a spade. There are options to make extra clubs either by finessing south for an honour or trying for a 3-2 split, but it is very likely I will lose a trick to setting the suit up, unless South holds both honours. I might struggle with a diamond switch from south. What about spades? Usually from KQ you would expect the K to be lead, which suggests it is with North, meaning my Jack should be protected. The question is should I take the first trick and try to set up clubs, or duck it and hope I don’t get a diamond switch? Could South be persuaded to lead a second spade? The trick would be to make South think his partner has a strong spade holding. If North plays a high card this would encourage the suit. I play the 9 from dummy and North plays 7. I need South to be sure this is a high card, so it is better to play the 8 from hand as this makes it more likely that the 7 is North’s high card. Sure enough south lead a second spade to the 10, and my J, and I take my 9 tricks. The full hand: I think it is odd that South lead the Q from KQ and then still chose to continue the suit, presumably they were expecting partner to hold the J. Similarly, I don’t think North should be encouraging the suit with that holding. A switch to the J would potentially have worked better for the defence. Declarer can duck but should lose 3 diamonds. A spade would then establish the K, but as the cards lie declarer can always make 9 tricks. Had I taken the A at trick one, the play then is a low club to the 10 if South ducks. Then return to hand with the heart and repeat the club finesse. As the cards lie, declarer can make 5 clubs, 5 hearts and the A for 11 tricks. The danger is that if North had won a trick, a spade to the King allows South to then lead diamonds through the King to defeat the contract. Where the declarer holds AJx in a suit ducks the left-hand opponent's lead of a king or queen this is known as a Bath Coup- it originated from the game of whist and is presumed to be named after the city of Bath. The purpose is to either gain a trick by means of a free finesse, as in this example, or to gain tempo for declarer as the suit cannot be continued without the opponents losing a trick. Good luck to everyone who is playing in the simultaneous pairs and I will update when the event is finished in a couple of weeks time. .

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