Hand of the week

Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday 21st January 2024

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1. What are you going to lead against the 1NT contract?

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Dealer: West Vul All

♠	10 9 4
♥	J 9 7
♦	J 9 7
♣	10 8 7 4

♠	J 7
♥	K 4 3
♦	K Q 10 5 4
♣	6 5 3

	N
W		E
W		E
	S

♠	A Q 8 6 3
♥	10 8 5
♦	A 8 3
♣	K 9

♠	K 5 2
♥	A Q 6 2
♦	6 2
♣	A Q J 2

W	N	E	S
Pass	Pass	Pass	1NT
End

You are of course going to lead from your longest suit but which one. Well with a sequence you will lead top of a sequence. Here you have KQ10 which I refer to as "an almost sequence".

When you play your king and it wins you can now deduce that partner "must have" the Ace otherwise declarer would have won the trick and then be able to lead up to the remaining Jack in dummy. So after winning the first trick play a low Diamond over to partner's Ace and he promptly plays back a 3rd Diamond and you now take the first 5 tricks noting partner chucking two Hearts. What now? Leading a club might give a free finesse, so you Play the ♠Jack and hit gold. Partner encourages while declarer wins with the King.

Declarer now tries to sneak a Heart through but you rise with the King and play another Spade. Partner cashes 4 more spades and you have taken this contract 4 off through sheer PATIENCE the key to most defences

You can also play out the following hand to see how the hand pans out. (You need bridgvu.exe programme and it is available free from http://www.haroldschogger.com/movies.html )

alternatively watch the film of the hand being played out by going to www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm

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