Sunday 9th  October   2011

Lead ¨4  Plan your play in 3NT to get all the Match Points.

In Match Points every single overtrick is vital and on this hand if you get the timing completely correct you could amass as many as 12 tricks.

Initially you have 6 tricks  (2 Spades, 2 Diamonds and 2 Clubs) but let’s see if we can double that.

The lead suggests that West has led from his longest suit so West is more likely to have the ¨Q than East so you let the first trick come around to you and the first trick is one by the 8 and you now finesse a second Diamond with dummy’s 10 holding the second trick. It’s now time to get down to our main suit, Clubs. Because West is long in Diamonds, East is more likely to be long in Clubs. If anybody has a singleton Club Honour it is going to be West. So at trick Three we cash dummy’s Club King pleased to see the Jack fall . The Theory of Restricted Choice tells us to now finesse East for the missing Queen (The Theory of Restricted Choice says that once an unexpected honour has fallen then other defender is twice as likely to have the other missing honour). When the §9 holds the trick we finesse once more and now out total is fast approaching 11 tricks and our contract is safe. Because of this we can go for yet another overtrick if the bridge Gods are with us and see if the Heart finesse  is good. So before cashing the final winning Club, while we are in hand, we play a low Heart to dummy’s 10 and when this forces out the Ace we can now claim 12 tricks.

We have made 2 Spades, 2 Hearts and 4 tricks in each Minor suit for all the Match Points.

 You can also view  watch the following movie to see how the hand pans out. (You need bridgvu.exe programme  or BridgeBase programme on your machine already to view it ) and it is available free from   http://www.haroldschogger.com/videos.htm

 alternatively watch the film www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm