The Schnapsen Log
Nothing to Spare (solution)
Martin Tompa
You are feeling wrung by Katharina’s ♣K lead. Your unpleasant choices seem to be either (1) discard ♠J and bare your ♠T to be captured or (2) break up your pretty marriage and be subjected to a throw-in in which you will have to open up the spade or heart suit. Which should you choose?
If you discard ♠J, this will be the position one trick later:
Katharina: (34 points)
♠ AQ
♥ TJ
♣ J
♦ —You: (28 points)
♠ T
♥ AKQ
♣ —
♦ J
Katharina will cash her ♠A, capturing your ♠T, and then exit with ♣J, which you must trump. You will then be on lead from this position:
Katharina: (55 points)
♠ Q
♥ TJ
♣ —
♦ —You: (32 points)
♠ —
♥ AKQ
♣ —
♦ —
You have been endplayed by Katharina’s elimination play. You can cash ♥A and declare your carefully preserved marriage, but that will get you only to 65 trick points, 1 point shy of what you need. Her established ♥T will give Katharina enough, though. Notice that Katharina was shrewd to exit with ♣J rather than ♠Q, as that 1 extra trick point is all you would have needed to reach 66.
Let’s go back to your discard at trick 5. You may as well break up that pretty marriage, since it didn’t do you any good. Will you then be subjected to a throw-in, as you feared? Let’s see. This will be the position at the beginning of trick 6:
Katharina: (35 points)
♠ AQ
♥ TJ
♣ J
♦ —You: (28 points)
♠ TJ
♥ AK
♣ —
♦ J
Can you foresee what should happen from here? Katharina will indeed throw you in by leading ♣J for you to trump:
Katharina: (35 points)
♠ AQ
♥ TJ
♣ —
♦ —You: (32 points)
♠ TJ
♥ AK
♣ —
♦ —
You must now open up one of these two vulnerable suits. Which one? The key observation is that neither of you can get to 66 trick points, so the endplay is illusory. All that matters is who takes the last trick. You have 2 heart entries and Katharina has 2 spade entries. Since you have the lead, you will win the last trick as long as you lead a losing spade whenever you are on lead: you lead a spade, she leads a heart, you lead a spade, and you win the last trick with your remaining heart.
Congratulations! You scored the 1 game point you need to move on to the next round of the tournament.
© 2015 Martin Tompa. All rights reserved.
