Answer to

Hand of the week commencing Sunday 17th February 2008  

 

 

 

North West

ª

 8 4

 

 

 

Neither Vulnerable

©

 K 8 6 4 3

 

 

 

 

¨

 Q J 7

 

 

 

 

§

 J 10 9

 

 

 

 

 

N

 

 

ª

 Q 6 5 

 

 

ª

A J 10 9 2 

©

 J 10 9 7 2

 

W                          E

©

 5

¨

 8 3 2

 

 

¨

 K 9 4

§

 Q 3

 

 

§

 8 7 4 2

 

 

 

S

 

 

 

 

ª

 K 7 3

 

 

 

 

©

 A Q

 

 

 

 

¨

 A 10 6 5

 

 

 

 

§

 A K 6 5

 

 

                           

W

N

E

S

NO

NO

1ª

DBL

2ª

3©

NO

3NT

NO

NO

NO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

West leads ª5 Plan your play in 3NT

 

West  has of course led his partner’s suit and you can no longer allow the opposition in or you will be 1 down . Initially, on the winners front,  you have 1 Spade, 3 Hearts 2 Clubs and 1 Diamond SEVEN. However the Hearts are blocked so you can really  only count two Heart winners so your winner tally is down to SIX. This means you need 3 more and they will have to come from a successful Diamond finesse. What is your entry to dummy.Your only entry to dummy is the Heart King . So you will win the first trick and set about getting to dummy by overtaking your Heart Queen with dummy’s King to lead dummy’s Diamond Queen to finesse the Diamond suit up to three times. Making these assumptions, you will now have 9 tricks – 1 Spade, 2 Hearts, 4 Diamonds and 2 Clubs. If this is the case why not cash AK of clubs first just for the remote possibility that one of the opponents has a doubleton Queen. If this is the case  your 9 tricks can suddenly become 11 since you will now have an extra entry (the Club Jack) in dummy and subsequently you will now make 3 Hearts tricks, As you no longer have to overtake . You now make 1 Spade, 3 Hearts, 4 Diamonds, and 3 Clubs.

 

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