At matchpoints in a robot tournament, we had a normal auction to reach 4H. East leads the Jack of diamonds. Dummy (south) covers and West takes the Ace and returns a small diamond. Plan the play.
At the table, I expected to see a ruff, a club return, another diamond ruff and another club, so down 2. I didn't want to go down 3 if the spades were 4-2, so I discarded a spade. I expected to be able to ruff north's club loser in dummy.
East did ruff, but didn't return a club! East returned a spade ... and now I took the winning finesse and went down 1 (two clubs, one diamond, one ruff). Had I discarded a club, I'd have made it because I can discard one more club on the queen of diamonds.
The full hand:
Funnily enough, had it been IMPs, I would have gotten it right, since playing for a defender error is the only way to win. But other than a robot, would anyone return a spade after ruffing the 3 of diamonds?
Sigh.
