Hand of the week commencing
Sunday 18th March 2007
The ©4 is led. After winning the first trick East continues with a second Heart.
Plan
your play.
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Dealer
South |
ª |
K Q J 5 4
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N
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© |
3 |
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¨ |
A
Q 9 8 |
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§ |
J
9 3 |
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N |
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ª |
A
10 9 7 |
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ª |
8
6 |
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© |
K
9 5 4 |
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W
E |
© |
A
J 10 8 6 2 |
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¨ |
J
5 4 |
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¨ |
2
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§ |
8
4 |
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§ |
Q
10 7 6 |
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S |
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ª |
3
2 |
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© |
Q
7 |
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¨ |
K
10 7 6 3 |
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§ |
A
K 5 2 |
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W |
N |
E |
S |
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1¨ |
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NO |
1ª |
NO |
2§ |
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NO |
2©* |
NO |
3¨
* fourth suit forcing |
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|||||
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NO |
5¨
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NO |
NO |
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NO |
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After the Hearts
continuation, declarer can count 5 trump winners, and 2 Clubs, plus a Heart ruff
. In order to bring home this hand we have to find three more tricks. The Club
Queen could fall in two rounds or we could even pin the Diamond 10. Or better
still we could set up the Spade suit in dummy. If the Spade ace is onside or the
Spades break 33 then we will get enough tricks without relying on some fortunate
lie of the club suit. It is all well and good setting up the Spade suit but will
we be able to get back to dummy later on in the play. Outside the trump suit
there are no entries to dummy.
Bearing this in mind we
should therefore set up the spades first, retaining our
high diamonds in dummy as entries. At trick two we ruff in dummy and play
a Diamond back to the King happy to see diamonds breaking no worse than 31. Now
play a Spade to dummy’s holding, and the King holds. Has East held up
or does West hold the Ace. We now return to hand via the Club Ace. We can
now finesse the Spade again. West takes his Ace and now declarer has three more
Spade winners in dummy. The two carefully preserved Diamonds in dummy enable you
entry to dummy and also to draw west’s
trumps. The established Spades can are finally played. Declarer has won 5
trumps, 3 Spades and 2 Clubs and 1 Heart ruffed.