13th October – Board 12: North/South Vul. Dealer West.
East would doubtless feel disappointed if his partner failed to land the slam on the hand shown below but in truth the layout was not kind for declarer.
West
|
North
|
East
|
South
|
1NT
|
No
|
2H
|
No
|
2S
|
No
|
3D
|
No
|
4S
|
No
|
6S
|
End
|
East takes a practical approach when his partner shows positive spade support with West unable to hold enough ‘right’ cards for the grand slam to be viable. However on the normal looking lead of the jack of hearts declarer is faced with a series of guesses. If the diamond finesse is working there is clearly no problem but as long as the defence keep completely passive and fail to open up any other suit declarer will ultimately be faced with the decision of whether to hope for the 3-3 break in diamonds or take a finesse against the ten. My instincts tell me the latter is right but I know I would do the former!
I would take the diamond finesse and if it fails try a squeeze against the diamond 10 and the queen of clubs. This maximises the chances.
ReplyDeleteAlso, shouldn't east's initial responce be 3S, to show 5 card and slam interest?
Nick M
Not sure about the squeeze. You can come to an end position where dummy has J9 in diamonds and Ax in clubs and North has 10x in diamonds and Qx in clubs but you still will not know for sure whether North has a club less and a heart more in which case you have to finesse the club through South.(You will have unblocked the jack of clubs earlier of course!)
ReplyDeleteA jump bid over 1NT is best played as a single-suited slam try and invites a cue-bidding sequence. Here East has no idea whether the slam is likely to be in spades or diamonds or even no-trumps so it is important to take things slowly, but you do need to play that a change of suit by the transferer is game forcing - 3D in this instance. If you have something like: S AQJxxx H Kxx D AQx Cx then that would be ideal for 3S over a no-trump opening.