Nasty Guess

29th August – Board 16: East/West Vul. Dealer West.

Elimination and endplay hands happen a lot although you still sometimes have to make a guess at a critical moment.

	North: S 10 4 3 H J D J 7 4 C Q 9 8 6 4 2
West: S J 9 5 H K 10 7 6 2 D K 5 3 C 10 3		East: S A 8 6 H A Q 9 8 4 3 D A 6 2 C K
	South: S K Q 7 2 H 5 D Q 10 9 8 C A J 7 5

West	North	East	South
No	No	1H	Dbl
3H	No	4H	End

It’s possible that North/South will ‘save’ in 5C but that would be expensive if declarer was not going to make 4H, and indeed he would have to be on his toes if South led a diamond. The best line is to win the lead in hand, cross to dummy with a trump and lead a club. (Sometimes the king will win!) However South will win and play another diamond but now declarer wins in dummy, ruffs the remaining club and exits with a diamond. Whoever wins will be forced to open up the spade suit or concede a ruff and discard. If South wins his best bet is to lead a low spade hoping that declarer will play him for the ten and play low from dummy while if North wins he should return a low spade to South’s king and again South must continue with a low spade trying to convince declarer he started with K10xx. It’s a close call but maybe with South’s take-out double he would read the situation correctly. Whatever the case if declarer tackled the spade suit himself he would be bound to lose two tricks in that suit and four tricks in all.