Hand of the week

Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday 29th August 2021

What do you lead -Plan your defence against their 4♥ contract

If you would like to play this hand out then click here

Dealer: East Vuln: N/S

♠	5 3
♥	K 10 7 6
♦	A K Q 9 3
♣	10 9

♠	A K 10 9
♥	8 2
♦	J 8 7 5 2
♣	Q 2

	N
W		E
W		E
	S

♠	Q J 7 4 2
♥	Q 3
♦	6 4
♣	A K 7 5

♠	8 6
♥	A J 9 5 4
♦	10
♣	J 8 6 4 3

W	N	E	S
		1♠	Pass
3♠	Double	Pass	4♥
End

When this hand was played with me in the East seat I was somewhat gob smacked when partner led the Spade Ace followed by a low Diamond. Now the defence was over as all declarer lost was 2 Spades and 1 club.

Lets now replay with some messages.

Partner having opened Spades now needs to know how many Spades opener started with. So there is a saying amongst expert "Play Ace for attitude and King for Count when you hold both the Ace and King. The way to remember it is that Ace and Attitude both start with A and King and Count both have the Same "k/c sound".

Since You need to know the count here, lead the Ace and see what partner plays. Partner follows suit with the 2 showing odd. It must be five or declarer would have ruffed the first trick. You can now play a second top Spade waiting for a signal from partner as to what to play next. Partner follows suit with the ♠4 and now you know partner wants the lower of the two remaining suit (i.e. a suit preference signal) and you duly switch to the Club Queen and now you will take the first four tricks. If you are not au fait with suit preference signals you should nevertheless still switch to Clubs as that's your only hope. You certainly would not switch to a Diamonds seeing all those diamonds in dummy all ready to dispose of any possible losers declarer might have.........