27th September – Board 10: Game All. Dealer
East.
I’m really not happy about
North’s choice of bid after his partner has opened 1♦. 3♦ seems the standout
candidate but to my mind it is a little on the strong side with 5♦ perhaps
making with 3NT standing no chance at all. (I would like to experiment with 1♥ and see what happens but as that is usually the worse I guess I would go with
the majority vote.) Anyway partner will bid 3NT over 3♦ – as they always do –
and you have to let him get on with it.
A club lead would leave declarer with an impossible task, but that is not going to happen. Suppose instead West leads a low spade to East’s jack and your king. What next? Obviously the diamonds have to provide a bucket-load of tricks but you have to be careful. As you do not want East to gain the lead it might look safe to lead a low diamond to the king but when East shows out the game is over. With two diamond losers now the defence can defeat the contract in any number of ways. No, at trick two you have to lead the queen of diamonds! You still need West to hold the ace but your foresight gains when the bad split comes to light. Whatever West does next you can win, take a marked diamond finesse and come to nine easy tricks.
