Hand of the week

Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday 8th August 2021

♠9 is led and East switches to ♥7 plan your play

<span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 51);">23 </span></a><br/><br/>

Dealer: North Vuln: E/W

♠	3
♥	Q J 8 6
♦	Q 7 3
♣	K 10 7 6 4

♠	9 6
♥	K 9 5 3 2
♦	10 9 4
♣	J 9 2

	N
W		E
W		E
	S

♠	A K Q 10 8 7 5 2
♥	7
♦	8
♣	Q 8 3

♠	J 4
♥	A 10 4
♦	A K J 6 5 2
♣	A 5

	8
4		11
	17

W	N	E	S
	Pass	1♠	2♦
Pass	3♦	4♠	5♦
End

Have you fallen into the trap of playing low on the Heart switch hoping East has the missing ♥King?

If so, you have gone down!! UGH

From the bidding it seems East has a good hand and a lot of Spades. This Heart switch suggests that East might have a singleton. If that is the case then you will lose to West's potential King plus an immediate ruff and you will instantaneously go down.

However if you have counted YOUR LOSERS CAREFULLY. you will realise that you only have 1 spade loser and 1 Heart loser and you can control everything else . With this in mind, go up with the Heart Ace, ruff one spade on the table while there are still trumps on the table. Then draw the remaining trumps and then concede a Heart to them and make your contract. You will make 6 Trumps, 2 Clubs, and 1 Spade ruffed and 2 Hearts losing just one Heart and 1 spade.

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 )