Hand of the week, week commencing, Sunday  8th September 2019

Playing Match Point Pairs plan your play in 4© after the friendly ¨2 lead?

Dealer South Love All.

                                    ♠          Q 9 5

                                    ♥          A 10 9 7 4 3 2

                                    ♦          J 9

                                    ♣          J

            ♠          J 6 2                             ♠          K 10 8 3

            ♥          J 5                                ♥          Q 6

            ♦          K 7 5 2                          ♦          8 6 4 3

            ♣          Q 8 7 2                         ♣          9 6 3

                                    ♠          A 7 4

                                    ♥          K 8

                                    ♦          A Q 10

                                    ♣          A K 10 5 4

Initially you have 7 winners after the Diamond lead, i.e. 1 Spade , 2 Hearts(only) 2 Diamonds and 2 Clubs.

If the Hearts are kind you will get 5 more Heart tricks bringing total to 12 so how can you now generate a 13^th trick. You could take the Diamond finesse but with West leading a Diamond that doesn’t look too good. You could take the Club finesse but that’s just a 50% shot.

However if the clubs break no worse than 4:3 (62% shot) then you could set up the last club for a 13^th trick.

With all this in mind. You win first trick and immediately play Ace and another club trumping on table. You now play Ace and another Heart to the King to be incorrect hand to ruff another club. You are absolutely delighted that the Hearts are 2:2. When you trump another club you now discover this suit is breaking 4:3 and you can now claim 13 tricks.

You will make  1 Spade, 5 Hearts, 2 Diamonds, 2 Clubs, 2 Clubs ruffed and 1 established club, for a well played hand.

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.videoes.html or BridgeBase programme on your machine already to view it )

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