6th November – Board 2. North/South Game.
Dealer East.
It’s not often that you
want an adverse suit to break badly when playing in no-trumps but declarer
needed just that plus a lot more as well to bring home his game contract.
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North:
S A 7 3
H A 9 8 6
D Q J 8
C K 5 4
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West:
S K Q 5 4
H K J
D 5 2
C A J 9 8 2
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East:
S J 10 6
H Q 7 5 4
D A K 6
C Q 10 7
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South:
S 9 8 2
H 10 3 2
D 10 9 7 4
3
C 6 3
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West
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North
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East
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South
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1NT
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No
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2C
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No
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2H
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No
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3NT
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End
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The
bidding is straightforward enough and South will most likely lead the ten of
diamonds. Declarer wins and notes that the contract is easy if the club finesse
wins but when it loses and North returns a diamond declarer looks to be in
trouble. As he has to lose the lead later in a major he cannot afford for
diamonds to break 4-4 because then he will have two major suit aces to lose
plus two diamonds and a club. Accordingly he needs diamonds to break 5-3 and
for the hand with only three diamonds to hold both the missing aces. So he
ducks the diamond return, wins the continuation perforce and finds that it is
his lucky day.
Well, yes, provided that North was smart enough to play the J on the first round! Otherwise the suit is blocked for the defence even if declarer mistakenly doesn't duck. For the record I ducked the first round, not the second, but in our case S had led the 4 not the 10 and of course N played the J and returned the Q top of 2 so the block didn't arise. .
ReplyDeleteAlso, surely it's correct to force out the spade A before taking the club finesse, so that if S holds that card declarer still has diamond control?
Chris A
You make a good point Chris. Actually you could attack either major at trick 2 (or 3 if you duck the first diamond.) Ideally you hope to knock out South's entry first but as he doesn't have one it wouldn't matter! Surely it's obvious though to unblock the diamond jack on the lead of the ten?
ReplyDelete