Answer to

Hand of the week commencing Sunday 25th June 2006

Playing Match Point pairs what is South’s best line

to make 11 tricks on the following hand ?

	Dealer West	ª	A Q 6 5 4
	North South Vul	©	Q 8 4 2
	Lead §6	¨	10 9 8
		§	4
			N
ª	8 7			ª	J 9 3 2
©	J 10 7		W E	©	6 5 3
¨	K J 6 4			¨	7 5 2
§	J 10 6 3			§	Q 9 2
			S
		ª	K 10
		©	A K 9
		¨	A Q 3
		§	A K 8 7 5

N	E	S	W
			NO
NO	NO	2§	NO
2ª	NO	2NT	NO
3©	NO	3NT	NO
NO	NO

After, the opponents have got off to their best possible lead, how can you now make maximum tricks. Initially, you have 3 Spades, 3 Hearts, 1 Diamond and 2 Clubs which is your contract. Where do you go for extra tricks. Do you go after the Spades ? Do you go after a double finesse in Diamonds or do you hope the Hearts break 33 . The best bet is to rely on spades being no worse than 42 (33 would be nice) and then go for the Hearts after that. To rely on the Double Diamond finesse would generally only produce one extra trick and also you would need 2 entries to the dummy. If you go for this line then you cannot bring in the Spades as well.

At trick 2, after winning the lead you immediately test the Spades. Although they break 42 you still have a Heart entry for the established 5^th Spade. As the card lie you have now bring in 4 Spades, 4 Hearts and three minor suit winners for a shared top.

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Answer to

A Q 6 5 4

8 7