On this hand you reply 2§ to partner’s 1ª bid (bidding up the line with 4 card suits) and when partner rebids 3ª  you correctly bid 3NT

West leads the ¨10 and you take stock.

You have 2 Spade winners, 4 Heart winners 1 Ace in each Minor. – 8 winners.

 Firstly, you must try that Queen in dummy- its rude to leave bare queen on table. You are pleased to see it win giving you a second Diamond stopper.

Where next Spades or Clubs ? Well in clubs you have 50% Finesse yielding only one trick extra but going after Spades you might get 3 or 4 extra .

So after winning the first trick with dummy’s Queen you come back to hand with  Heart Queen (no problem here about blocking suit as you have Club Ace as an entry later). You now take the Spade finesse losing to East’s Queen. East plays back a Diamond which you win. You now go over to a top Heart to continue playing Spades. When East follows with the 10 you know that the spades have broken 4:2 but because the 10 was part of a Doubleton your 9 becomes a key player and you can now make the rest of the tricks.

You will make 2 Spades, 3 established Spades, 4 Hearts, 1 Diamond 1 established Diamond (Queen trick one) and 1 club and there was no need to take that losing Club finesse bringing in a massive 12 tricks.

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

  alternatively watch the film www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm

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

Have you tried ATVing yet ?