questionofweek

Plan your play in 5♣ after the ♥Queen is led

Dealer: East

Vuln: None

♠	A K J 8 6
♥	4 2
♦	J 10 9
♣	A 5 3

♠	9
♥	Q J 10 8 7 3
♦	A 7 5 3 2
♣	Q

	N
W		E
W		E
	S

♠	10 7 5 4 2
♥	K 9 6
♦	8 6 4
♣	K 6

♠	Q 3
♥	A 5
♦	K Q
♣	J 10 9 8 7 4 2

W	N	E	S
		Pass	1♣
2NT¹	3♠	Pass	4♣
Pass	5♣	End

1. Unusual No Trump confirming 55 or better in the two lowest remaining suit suits here Diamonds and Hearts

After a somewhat busy auction South ends up in 5♣

After the ♥Queen is led you count your winners and losers.

Initially you only have 6 winners i.e 4 spades and 2 further Aces only. On the losers front you have 3 losers, 1 Heart,1 Diamond and 1 Club.

Therefore, you will need to dump one of these losers and it seems you can dump that second heart on dummy's top spades.

With all this in mind, win the first trick and immediately play just one round of trumps delighted to see everybody follow. There is just the ♣King out now and you don't need to draw it (Rule of 1).

Now play ♠Queen and two more spades pleased to see that West is unable to ruff marking East with the last trump . On the third round of spades dump your Heart loser and the play top Diamond to establish the Diamond trick and you can now claim conceding one more trump trick to the opponents.

You made 6 Clubs, 1 Diamond 1 Heart and 3 Spades losing just the trump King and the Diamond Ace

( you can play these hands out using bridgevu.exe and it is available free from http://www.haroldschogger.com/movies.html ) Click on the lin picture above