Dealer South. Love All

                             ♠        J 4 2

                             ♥        A 10 4 2

                             ♦        A Q 8

                             ♣       A K 8

          ♠        Q 10 9 6                         ♠        A 8 7

          ♥        6 5                              ♥        9 8 7

          ♦        K 10                             ♦        7 6 5 3 2

          ♣       J 9 7 6 2                         ♣       Q 10

                             ♠        K 5 3

                             ♥        K Q J 3

                             ♦        J 9 4

                             ♣       5 4 3

This hand from OK bridge my partner got lucky when he misplayed it and still got home.

He correctly drew trumps and then embarked on the Diamonds pleased to see the 10 fall and the finesse appearing to work but then he lost the plot, but a the 11^th hour he successfully finessed the Spade King and got lucky.

Let’s now go back to the beginning and see if we can take advantage of the friendly lie of the Diamond suit and do away with the Spade guess.

Initially you have 7 winners- 4 top trumps, 1 top Diamond and 2 top clubs. On the losers front you have 2 Spades, maybe 3, 1 Diamond and 1 club.

If the Diamonds are friendly, then we can strip the hand down and guarantee no more then 2 Spade loser when the opposition plays this suit for us. (NB This suit is known as a frozen suit, whereby neither you nor the opponents want to broach it for fear of giving away a trick).

So the first task after winning the first trick is to draw trumps ending in hand so you can take the Diamond finesse. You now play low  and insert dummy’s Queen when West plays the Ten. You now cash the Ace delighted to see that West started with K10 doubleton.

Now it’s a matter of stripping out the Diamonds first and then the clubs. So you can now cash the last diamond before playing three rounds of Clubs, not minding who gets the lead because whoever gets the lead will either now give away a ruff and discard guaranteeing no more than 2 Spade losers or open up the Spade suit to guarantee no more that 2 spade losers, no matter who holds the Ace and who holds the Queen.

You can also watch the following movie to see how the hand pans out. To view this programme you will need  to download htttp://www.haroldschogger.com/bridgevu.setup

if you would like to comment on this page or say you like it you may do so now :-