I was amazed to find how many songs there were with the title 'Stepping Stone'. You may remember some of them, by The Monkees, Jimi Hendrix, Eminem and more recently by my compatriot Duffy. The phrase has many meanings; in relationships, career moves or garden design, but the bridge meaning is a way of using an opponent's hand to gain access to one of your hands which lacks an entry.
Instead, declarer should leave the heart stranded in dummy and finesse the diamond immediately. When that holds you can safely exit with a spade and poor East either has to repeat the diamond finesse for you or play a heart to dummy, acting as a stepping stone to allow you to repeat the finesse yourself. Ten tricks would be worth over 80%, so the room (and the country, as it was a SIMs) is not often finding this play. If, instead, East discards the queen of hearts on the last club and keeps a spade winner, now you do cash the king of hearts and East is "stepping-stone-squeezed".
jilljill was the declarer who emerged with twelve tricks when East at her table ducked the second spade and later threw a diamond on the fourth club! Unsurprisingly she scored 100%.
Good spot Paul that caters for all layouts (and was missed in the booklet write up). And if East happens to be 5-4-1-3 then it is West who will have to give you a heart trick at the end!
ReplyDeleteThe write up was by Ian Payn, the excellent non-playing captain of London in the Tollemache Trophy, with the emphasis on the "non-playing".
ReplyDeleteOf course, when the Rueful Rabbit was West he had his king of diamonds in with the hearts. Even though the real king of hearts was in dummy. He ducked the queen of diamonds and when South exited with a spade, East won and played a heart to dummy. Declarer repeated the diamond finesse but by now RR had found the king of diamonds and made the last two hearts for one off.