Hand of the week

Hand of the week

Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday 6th October 2024

Plan your play in 4♥ after West cashes ♠Ace followed by ♦2

Dealer: North Vul: All

If you would like to play this hand click here

♠	4
♥	Q 4 2
♦	Q J 5 4
♣	K Q 7 6 4

♠	A K J 8 5 2
♥	6
♦	10 7 2
♣	10 5 2

	N
W		E
W		E
	S

♠	Q 9 6
♥	K J 3
♦	K 9 8 6
♣	J 9 3

♠	10 7 3
♥	A 10 9 8 7 5
♦	A 3
♣	A 8

W	N	E	S
	Pass	Pass	1♥
2♠	4♥	End

I was somewhat surprised when a relatively experienced player managed to go two down on this hand and his partner promptly left.

(Perhaps North might do a Negative double over the 2♠ bid but he got lucky when partner turned up with a six card Heart suit)

Let us now replay the hand.

After West switches to a Diamond giving you a free diamond finesse you take stock.

You have 1 Heart winner, 2 Diamond winners (now) after the switch and 3 top club winners.

On the losers front, you have 1 spade loser as you can now trump a Spade in dummy. You no longer have a Diamond loser and you have no club losers. So everything points to how you play the trump suit to keep the losers in that suit to hopefully just one.

The Spade lead and the 2♠ overcall now suggests that West has no more important cards and the ♥ King must be with East.

After the ♦Jack holds, play the ♥Queen and East covers. Now trump a Spade (while there are still trumps in the dummy).

Now risk playing 3 rounds of clubs chucking the Diamond loser. Everybody follows and now its a matter of drawing the remaining trumps.

You lose one more trick (♥Jack)

You made 1 Spade ruff, 5 trumps, 2 Diamonds and 3 clubs losing just one spade and on trump

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 )

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

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