Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday  2nd February 2020

¨6   is led, plan your  play

Dealer  South  Both Vul

                                    ♠          10 4

                                    ♥          Q 8 2

                                    ♦          A K 9 7 2

                                    ♣          10 4 3

            ♠          J                                  ♠          Q 9 5 3

            ♥          K J 10 5                        ♥          A 9 7 6 4

            ♦          Q 8 6 5                         ♦          J 10

            ♣          J 8 7 5                          ♣          A Q

                                    ♠          A K 8 7 6 2

                                    ♥          3

                                    ♦          4 3

                                    ♣          K 9 6 2

The hand this week is all about using entries wisely and noticing what goes as the hand develops.

You win the first trick in dummy with your top Diamond one of only two entries. So while in dummy take the club finesse The finesse works.

You Play the trump Ace now  and make your first important observation that West throws the trump Jack. The Theory of restricted choice now sys that the other player is twice s likely to hold the adjacent high card ie the Queen. With this in mind you now use the second entry to dummy in order to finesse the Spade10. As your intermediate Spades are so good (10876) between the two hands you can afford to play the Ten and let it run.  East plays low and you win the trick with the 10. Now it’s a matter of drawing another round of trumps when you can and conceding just the Queen (as the trumps did indeed break 4:1)

If you were careless and tried to play two top trumps and fail to notice the fall of the Jack you will lose 2 trumps, 1 Heart  and 3 clubs.

With your play of the trump suit you made  5 trumps, 2 Diamonds and 1 Club and just about scrambled 8 tricks.

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.videoes.html or BridgeBase programme on your machine already to view it )

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