Hand of the week

Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday 5th September 2021

Plan your play in ♥2 after the ♠9 lead

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

Dealer: West Vuln: E/W

♠	A 7 6
♥	7 4 3
♦	J 8 6 3
♣	7 4 2

♠	9 2
♥	10 8 2
♦	A Q 10 9 7
♣	A J 3

	N
W		E
W		E
	S

♠	Q J 10 8 5
♥	6 5
♦	5
♣	K Q 9 8 6

♠	K 4 3
♥	A K Q J 9
♦	K 4 2
♣	10 5

W	N	E	S
Pass	Pass	Pass	1♥
2♦	2♥	End

When my partner was declarer on this hand he made very heavy weather, living dangerously by not drawing trumps and in the end was lucky to come out with 8 tricks.

After the lead, East must be marked with the QJ of Spades and West for his 2 level overcall must be marked with everything else. Surely, West would not overcall with just two Aces or AQ of Diamonds only.

With this in mind you count your winners. You have 4 Hearts, and two top Spades.

If the Hearts break no worse than 4:1 you will make your ♥9 so now you need to find just 1 more.

The extra trick will have to come from the Diamond suit after drawing trumps in three rounds. You assume that West has both the Ace and Queen and the only way to generate the extra trick is to lead low from hand towards dummy's Jack and now you have generated the eighth trick.

You make 5 Hearts, 2 Spades and 1 Diamond which quite frankly should be an easy hand to play.

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.com/movies.html )