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Hand Analyses 31st January, 2007
West’s 1NT was in the 15-18 range, and North intended her Double to show extra values, but there is also another commonly used treatment for more on which please see the Bidding Quiz. After the Double, East had nowhere to go, and apprehensively passed. South did not have enough to leave the Double in, so she bailed out to 2♦, fortuitously catching Partner’s second suit.
It’s an easy enough matter for Declarer to score 9 tricks in a Diamond contract, she simply loses the three obvious black suit tricks, and concedes a trick to the A♥ to establish Dummy’s two tricks in that suit. Is there a way to make 10 tricks? Yes, but only if West started with Axx of Hearts and if trumps are 2-2 … if that’s the case then the A♥ can be ruffed out. However, pursuing this slim chance risks making only 8 tricks, as in this line of play: West cashes A♣ and K♣ Third round of Clubs is ruffed on the board Heart ruff Cross on a Diamond Heart ruff Cross on a Diamond Now, if trumps are 3-1 (presumably West has the 3), Declarer does best to concede a Heart, but then the lead of a 4th round of Spades establishes a 5th defensive trick, one way or another. Suppose next that trumps are 2-2 and Declarer continues her pursuit of 10 tricks … she leads another Heart from the board and ruffs it, which works out great if the Ace comes down, but more often it won’t, and again the defense will come to a 5th trick. All in all, that pursuit of the 10th trick is just not worth it, better to settle for a certain 9.
After a routine Transfer sequence, the defense will take 5 or 6 tricks against the 2♠ contract. Which it is will depend on South’s opening lead. The only way to 6 defensive tricks is for South to start out with a Club, which allows N-S to score their 4 major suit winners, and the K♣, and the Diamond ruff. We don’t see any good reason to make that Club lead, we’d probably lead a trump or maybe a Diamond, either of which hands Declarer his contract.
Although the N-S hands have but a combined 18 HCP’s and no real fit, it turns out that even 4♠ is not such a terrible contract, requiring no more than a Heart finesse (and, on some defenses, with Diamonds 3-3, not even that). What makes the hand for N-S is the way that the minor suits mesh together … swap around North’s Clubs and Diamonds, and now even 2♠ is too high!
Anyway, we’d expect most tables to play this one in 2♠, making 9 tricks when the Heart finesse fails, and the only question here is whether East might have ventured a balancing action, and, if so, what? Please see the Bidding Quiz.
No arguments with this straightforward auction. What would you lead as South against 4♠? Surely this one is a no-brainer, the T♥ is a stand-out, both safe and attacking. It also has the added benefit of being the only lead that beats the contract, setting up two Heart tricks before one of them can be pitched away on minor suit winners. Down one!
A simple enough auction, with 9 tricks available to Declarer. Let’s say that West leads a Spade, and that the defense forces out Declarer’s King. Next the A♥ is knocked out, the defense cashes their Spades, and East shifts to a Club, won by Dummy’s Ace. Now, Dummy’s Q♦ is run around, the Diamonds come in and it’s 9 tricks.
Yes, in the play of the Diamond suit, Declarer had a chance to show off her flawless technique. If Diamonds are 3-2 (with the K♦ onside) then, when Declarer is in Dummy for the first and last time, it is sufficient to run the Q♦ in order to pick up the suit. But suppose that East has K9xx … now there’s nothing to be done, Declarer can score but 3 Diamonds in the absence of another board entry. Finally, suppose that East has Kxxx and West has the singleton Nine. This is where that flawless technique pays dividends! Dummy’s Q♦ is led, East ducks, and Declarer unblocks the Jack! This costs nothing in the 3-2 case, but, if West contributes the singleton Nine on this trick, the thoughtful unblock gets its just reward … now the Eight can be run around, and the whole suit is picked up.
Quite a raunchy preempt, considering the vulnerability, we could very easily do without this one. With or without the preempt, North will end up declaring 4♠ and this makes 11 tricks with ease.
North wisely declines the invitation to game, East leads a Diamond, and Declarer is struggling. Double dummy she can get out for down one, but it’s easy to see how she might wind up down two with normal play.
West has a 4-loser hand which is good enough for a jump shift rebid, but with such a disparity in the suits, he decided to go slow with 1♠. But, either way, 4♠ should be reached, and North will no doubt lead a Heart, leading to this line of play: Heart lead to Dummy’s Ace Q♠ finesse which wins Spade to the Ace, North showing out Cash A♣ K♣ ruffed by South Heart continuation, ruffed by Declarer Declarer continues to play on Clubs and ends up with 11 tricks, losing just two trumps. Can the defense do better? Yes, but only with the improbable opening lead of a Diamond, prematurely knocking out one of Declarer’s entries and making it impossible for him to handle the bad trump break and also set up the Clubs. A Diamond lead holds Declarer to 10 tricks.
Walsh Addendum With moderate values, Walsh players bypass the Diamond suit whenever they have a major to bid, and that would lead to this briefer auction: West North East South 1♣ Pass 1♠ 2♥ 4♠ Pass Pass Pass As usual, the Walsh auction is less informative to the opponents (usually a good thing!) but on this occasion it does not influence the outcome … still a Heart lead, still 11 tricks.
N-S were playing “Inverted Minors”, whereby 2♦ is forcing and showed invitational values or better and denied a 4-card major. South’s 2♥ showed nothing extra, nor even a Heart suit, it was merely telling Partner she had values in the suit.
Against 3NT, West has a normal enough Spade lead which gives Declarer and easy route to 11 tricks thanks to the minor suit finesses. She just needs to get the Heart suit right for 12 tricks.
West’s Spade lead gave Declarer an easy route to 12 tricks, but actually 12 are possible on any lead. Suppose that West cleverly leads a Club, giving nothing away. Now Declarer cashes all of her minor suit winners, ending in her hand (and pitching a Spade on the 5th Diamond). This is the end position: Dummy ♠ 985 ♥ AT ♦ ♣ 9 West East ♠ KJ6 ♥ KJ6 Immaterial ♦ ♣ Declarer ♠ AQ ♥ Q92 ♦ ♣ A At this point, Declarer has 10 top tricks, but the play of the last Club generates two more! If West pitches a Spade, Declarer cashes the A♠ and exits a Spade … this builds a Spade trick and end-plays West in Hearts! If West instead pitches a Heart things are no better … this time, Declarer cashes the A♥ and exits a Heart, which builds a Heart trick and end-plays West in Spades!
Good bidding by N-S to overcome the vigorous preemption in Hearts and arrive at the par spot. There was nothing South could do over 4♥, but 4NT demanded that Partner pick a minor (would that be your interpretation?) and 5♦ was the final contract.
But will 5♦ make? With two inescapable losers in the majors, everything hinges on how Declarer tackles the Diamonds. Is there any reason why she should lay down the A♦ first, catering for West having all three? Wouldn’t it also be reasonable to guess the other way and start with the K♦? Any clues in the bidding? Well, West has more HCP’s than East, but there’s still plenty of room for the Q♦ in the East hand. Perhaps a better inference is that, with a Diamond void, West would probably have a Michaels hand, and yet he made a simple overcall. Anyway, it’s 10 or 11 tricks, depending on Declarer’s ability to ferret out that Queen.
How do E-W fare in 4♥ (doubled, of course)? Rather well, as a matter of fact! It’ll be 10 tricks unless North can find the extraordinary opening lead of a low Club, setting up a Club ruff for the 4th defensive trick.
South cannot have been thrilled about passing Partner’s Double of 1NT but she had nowhere to go. The play in 1NT doubled will not be pleasant for Declarer. North will probably lead a Diamond after which a Heart shift (followed by Spades back from South when she gets in with Hearts) ensures a two trick set.
Perhaps North’s failure to balance was pusillanimous but he certainly did not have any convenient way into the auction. Anyway, even if North does balance with 1♥ or 2♣, E-W will surely end up in a Diamond part-score of some description and 10 tricks are there for the taking.
After LHO opens one of a suit, followed by two passes, it’s common practice to reduce the requirements for a 1NT overcall from 15-18 HCP’s down to around 11-15 or some such range. However, after a two-level opening, we make no such accommodation, and, whether we are direct or balancing, 2NT shows the same 15-18 HCP’s.
Playing in 3♠, Declarer has 3 obvious trump losers, and also an inescapable Diamond loser … he can get one away after a successful Club finesse, but one will still remain. Does that mean it’s always 9 tricks, and on to the next board? Not necessarily! North’s opening lead is the Q♦, ruffed by South, and … oops! Yes, South must resist the temptation to ruff, she’s ruffing one of Declarer’s losers with one of the defenses’s natural trump tricks! Of course, looking just at the South and East hands, it’s far from clear that ruffing would be a mistake. For example, if North held the A♣ or the A♥ instead of the K♠, then it would most definitely be right to go after two Diamond ruffs. A tough one for the defense to get right, we’d expect a few 170’s on the scoresheet.
You may not think too much of that 3♠ bid on a small (microscopic, in fact) doubleton, but what on earth was South supposed to do in that situation? She had a truly awkward rebid problem, please see the Bidding Quiz.
As it happens, the featured bid of 3♠ (a Professor Oddbid special, by the way) works like a charm with Dummy’s puny Spades serving as protection against an initial Club force. Suppose that East starts with a Club won by West. West does best to grab his second Club while he can, but suppose that he shifts to a trump at Trick Two, attempting to stop the ruff on the board. Bad news for the defense! Declarer wins the trump, runs the J♥, cashes two more Spades, finesses a Heart (praying that West did not make a tricky duck with the Q♥!), cashes two more Hearts pitching the remaining Club losers, and makes 10 tricks when the J♦ comes down on the second round of the suit.
Let’s have a little sympathy for North’s speculative (but stunningly unsuccessful) Double of 2♠. She obviously liked her Club holding and figured that repeated trump leads would set the contract a trick or two. No such luck! Here is one line of play which is particularly gruesome (for the defense, anyway): Spade to Declarer’s Ace K♥, won by South’s Ace K♠ cashed Diamond to Dummy’s Ace Cash two Hearts, pitching Clubs Another Heart, pitching a Club, ruffed by North Diamond ruff Declarer loses a Club Diamond ruff Club ruff Heart winner, pitching the last Club Yikes! Making 9 tricks and an unseemly -570 for N-S. Yes, South could have done better at Trick Two. When Declarer leads the K♥, South must duck, even though North plays the two saying “I have an odd number”. However, this good play only holds Declarer to 8 tricks, for the same zero and 2♠ is actually cold on all lines of play. Yes, a “speculative Double” indeed!
2♥ with a 7-card suit? Many don’t care for this one bit, for one thing it messes up any Total Trick analysis that Partner might try in a competitive auction. That’s certainly a down-side, we’ll agree, but nonetheless we can live with that 2♥ bid. Anyway, 3♦ was forcing and the auction subsided in 3♥. Then, just as everybody was picking up their bidding cards, South said “Not so fast!”, springing to life with an intrepid balance of 3♠. Nice bid! And also nicely done by North, passing and giving Partner some leeway for her balance.
In the play of 3♠, that off-beat 2♥ opening may turn out to be a blessing. For example, West leads a Diamond won by Declarer’s Ace, then a Spade to King and Ace. East cashes a Diamond and shifts to the K♥, putting Declarer at the crossroads. The winning line of play is to ruff a Heart and take the Slade finesse, eventually losing a trick in each suit. But it will look more promising to go after two Heart ruffs on the board, a plan that fails when East performs the dastardly overruff. But, even if Declarer manages to go down in 3♠, the balance was still excellent value for the money, because 3♥ makes 9 tricks.
Another routine auction to another normal contract. Before we look at the play, what are your honor card lead agreements? Many partnerships like to play Coded 9’s and 10’s, whereby the opening lead of the Nine or the Ten shows 0 or 2 higher. For example, playing this convention, here are the required leads from these holdings: KT9x Lead the 9 (2 higher) QT9x Again the 9 T9x Lead the Ten (0 higher) JT9x Lead the Jack (when there are two higher there must be a gap in the sequence). KQTx Lead the King, even playing “9’s and 10’s” we still lead the top of a sequence.
OK, suppose that N-S are playing Coded 9’s and 10’s. North leads the Ten, making it quite clear to Declarer that the Ace and the King are both with South. The biggest knock against 9’s and 10’s is that they make it extra easy for Declarer to read the situation. That’s certainly the case here … South wins the K♠, shifts to a Club, the Diamond finesse works and Declarer can safely lead towards his Spade holding … South must duck to avoid handing Declarer 11 tricks, but on the run of the Diamonds South is ruined and Declarer will make 11 tricks. Yes, Declarer can make 11 tricks in a variety of ways, regardless of the N-S lead conventions, but the Coded 9’s and 10’s sure made his life easier.
East’s 4♥ bid typically shows something in the 18-19 range, so West can be sure that the hand belongs in slam. That’s easy, but how about 7♥? Or even 7NT? Our featured West plunged headlong to 7♥, please see the Bidding Quiz.
Looking just at the E-W hands, how do you like your chances in 7♥? There are 11 top tricks, and the best chance for two more is surely by getting two Spade ruffs in Dummy. This plan is all the more attractive given our great spots in the trump suit. Let’s say that North leads a trump, the tried and trusted favorite against suit grand slams … Declarer draws a second round, cashes two Spades, and when the Queen drops, it becomes a piece of cake.
East buys this one in 1NT, and who can say what South will lead? A Heart lead gives Declarer the timing to score 8 tricks, whereas a Spade lead will hold her to 7. We wouldn’t want to lead a Diamond here, it seems the most dangerous lead of all, and it gets what it deserves when it presents Declarer with a 9th trick.
After South’s transfer to Spades, North had a so-called “super accept”, the N-S methods being as follows: - With a crummy square hand, don’t bother to super-accept - With a decent or good hand, bid 3♠ directly - With a maximum hand, bid 2NT This method has the benefit of disclosing nothing to the opponents, some of the other methods in use provide gratuitous information to the opponents. With that in mind, North classified her hand as a maximum … only 16 HCP’s but great controls and all HCP’s working.
That 3♥ bid was a re-transfer, making sure that the strong hand was Declarer.
The play is as straightforward as can be. There’s a Heart loser that cannot be avoided, and with the Club finesse working it comes down to the Spade finesse for 11 or 12 tricks. There don’t seem to be any clues which would dissuade Declarer from simply playing for the drop, and the score-sheet will no doubt be littered with 650’s.
With different vulnerability, South might have preempted to the 3-level, but even that would not have kept E-W out of the obvious 4♠ game. North leads the Q♦, and Declarer ruffs the second round. Next is a Spade, discovering the bad break … Declarer now plays on Clubs, North ruffing the 3rd round, but now East is able to ruff the 4th round, and Declarer escapes with a Diamond loser, the adverse Club ruff, and eventually a Heart loser, for 10 tricks and +620.
What an ugly situation West found himself in after the 2♦ rebid? His 2NT was an overbid but the best of a bad job, then he gave up when East rebid the Diamonds. Perhaps West brought this awkward auction upon himself, please see the Bidding Quiz for more on this.
3♦ is not a pretty contract, but if Declarer is a good scrambler he might score a surprising number of tricks, as in the following line: Club lead (seems normal, it is the unbid suit after all) won by the Ace Club to the King Heart to the King and South’s Ace Spade to North’s King Spade ruff Q♥, pitching a Club Heart ruff Spade ruff Heart ruff Q♣, ruffed by North, and overruffed Now, Declarer exits a Heart which North must ruff, and Declarer’s Q♦ will be his 9th trick. Yes, the defense could have done better, shifting to a Diamond when in with the A♥, after which 8 tricks is the limit, still not bad in the circumstances.
If West manages to play this in 3♣, North will lead the A♠, and shift to a trump won by Dummy’s Ten. Declarer has trouble untangling his tricks and the obvious line of play is to play a Diamond to the Ace and a Heart towards the board, hoping that North has the Ace and that she finds herself in a dilemma … either she rises with the Ace and Dummy scores two Heart tricks … or else the K♥ wins, followed by Heart ruff, Spade ruff, etc. Down one when 8 tricks proves to be the limit.
Playing in 3♣, Declarer has a more obscure line of play available, but one which has the benefit of being both elegant and successful. The A♠ is cashed, Dummy’s Ten wins the Club shift, K♥ losing to the Ace, Club return, Q♥ cashed (pitching a Spade), Heart ruff. Now Declarer runs his trumps and puts North through the wringer. Here is the position with one trump left to play: North ♠ KQ8 ♥ ♦ KT ♣ Declarer Dummy ♠ T6 ♠ ♥ ♥ 76 ♦ A3 ♦ Q98 ♣ 5 ♣ South ♠ 97 ♥ 9 ♦ J4 ♣ It looks as if Declarer has only two tricks remaining, but when he plays the last Club North has no good options. She obviously cannot pitch a Diamond, and if she pitches a low Spade she will get thrown in on a Spade and will be end-played in Diamonds. Perhaps her best shot is to pitch away a high Spade, hoping that South has the Ten, but this fails when Declarer now cashes A♦ and exits a Diamond, this time end-playing North in Spades!
Many players would not bother with Stayman given the East hand, for more on this please see the Bidding Quiz.
North will no doubt lead a major against 3NT. If she chooses Spades, the standard lead would be the King, seeking Partner’s attitude in the suit. South encourages, the Spades are cashed, after which Declarer has 8 top tricks, and 9 when the Diamonds come home. If North finds the dangerous-looking Heart lead, it will be much the same, Declarer winning the first 9 tricks instead of the last 9 tricks.
We like West’s auction here, supporting Spades with just 3, then reintroducing the Diamonds at the 3-level. And a bold balancing effort by South, though to no avail as it happens.
Playing in Spades, Declarer has 8 top tricks, and will seek additional tricks via a Club ruff in Dummy. Of course, the defense will make sure that there is no second such ruff and 9 tricks will be the likely outcome.
Yes, the defense can stop the Club ruffs altogether by starting out with the A♠ and another Spade. This stops Declarer from getting that easy 9th trick, and forces her to go after Diamonds: A♠ and another Spade Cash A♦ Ruff a Diamond Cross on a Spade Ruff another Diamond Cash A♥ Overtake the Q♥ with the King to get to the Diamonds 10 tricks for Declarer, thanks to the kind breaks. Declarer never gets her Club ruff in Dummy, and sacrifices a Heart trick for entry purposes, but in return she gets 3 extra Diamond tricks.
Now here’s a controversial auction! N-S were playing that (over 1♦) 2♣ would be game-forcing and 3♣ would be weak. Clearly not a desirable set of methods on this particular hand! So, what else could South do but manufacture a 1♥ response?
SAYC players would have no problem with this hand, of course, they’d respond 2♣, and then rebid 3♣ and North would no doubt take a shot at the same precarious (but cold) 3NT contract that was reached in the featured auction. One solution for the 2/1 players is to play 1♦ 3♣ as an invitational bid, and that would be our own preferred choice.
N-S inched into the good 4♥ game, one that would have been missed if North had (mistakenly in our view) opened 1NT. Please see the Bidding Quiz for more on this.
4♥ looks like 10 tricks with proper play. Let’s say that East leads the J♦, won on the board. Declarer tries the Spade finesse right away, cashes the A♠, ruffs a Spade and leads a Heart to her King. When that holds, she crosses to Dummy’s A♣ for another Heart lead and winds up losing just a Heart, a Diamond, and a Club. +620.
In the above line of play, note the importance of that early Spade finesse, the hand cannot be made on the actual lie of the cards if Declarer uses both Dummy entries to play on Hearts … instead she must use one of them for the Spade finesse, which creates a 3rd entry to the board via the Spade ruff.
Suppose that East, for whatever reason, decides to start the defense with a Spade lead. Declarer wins two Spades, ruffs a Spade, plays a Heart to the King, crosses to the K♦, leads a Heart to West’s Ace, wins the Diamond return and runs the remaining trumps. Here is the position with one trump left to play: Declarer ♠ ♥ 3 ♦ 8 ♣ Q7 West East ♠ ♠ ♥ ♥ ♦ Q ♦ JT ♣ J86 ♣ K9 Dummy ♠ ♥ ♦ 9 ♣ AT5 East has already been squeezed out of his Spade winners, and now on the last trump he must throw a Diamond winner in order to protect the K♣. As for West he can pitch a Club or a Diamond, but, either way, one defender or the other is about to get thrown in with a Diamond for a Club end-play.
Actually, this squeeze is good enough for 11 tricks on any opening lead, though on a Diamond lead it would require (for entry purposes) an anti-percentage first round Heart finesse.
Would you (or did you?) balance in the East seat over 2♠? Please see the Bidding Quiz.
A Spade opening lead is the winner here, preventing the Diamond ruff in Dummy and holding Declarer to 7 tricks. Is that such an obvious lead? Often (perhaps usually) this auction is made with two-card support, so there will often not be a potential ruff in Dummy. Nonetheless, Dr Goodlead was right there with a trump lead saying “Other leads look too dangerous, and there’s a remote chance we can stop a ruff”.
No doubt East will lead a Spade after this auction, to West’s Queen and Declarer’s King. Now A♣ and out a Club, at which point West must (and surely should) shift to a Diamond in order to hold Declarer to 9 tricks.
With a 4-loser hand, East is good value for his jump shift to 3♥, and the main question here is “Does 3♥ promise a 5-card suit?” Playing standard methods it doesn’t, otherwise Declarer would be stuck for a rebid when he has a really strong 5-4 hand, but there is a useful gadget which adds clarity to the situation, for which please see the Bidding Quiz.
4♥ will be going down if the defense attacks Clubs right away (or cashes A♦ and shifts to a Club). In fact he will be down two if he fails to play the Hearts correctly.
How about 4♠? That one makes, although Declarer will be down one if he fails to play the Hearts correctly.
Card Combination Corner We noted above that in both 4♥ and 4♠, in order to get the best result possible, it is incumbent upon Declarer to “play the Hearts correctly”. But “correctly” means two different things here! In 4♠, the right play is to ruff the second round of Clubs, draw trumps, and then finesse the J♥ without first cashing the Ace … this play caters for the singleton Nine or Ten in the South hand (but gives up on singleton Queen in the North hand) and on the actual layout brings in the suit for just one loser. Making 10 tricks!
In 4♥, it’s a different story. Now, if Declarer loses a first round Heart finesse and trumps turns out to be 4-1, he’ll be down two instead of just one. So, correct play in 4♥ is to cash the A♥ first, then lead towards Dummy … if South follows the hand is cold whether the Heart finesse wins or not, but when South shows out on the second round, Declarer calls for Dummy’s King, and then abandons trumps, running the Spade suit and letting North take her two trump tricks when she likes. Down just one.
1NT will probably end up down two … 5 Clubs are cashed (North giving a discouraging Diamond on the 5th round), then a Heart to North’s Ace, and a Heart back, and that will be 8 tricks for the defense.
Anyone for Garbage Stayman with the West hand? We would certainly be tempted and this might be the ensuing auction: West North East South 1NT Pass 2♣ Dbl 2♦ 3♣ Pass Pass Pass West was planning to get out in Partner’s better major. How about that lead-directing Double of 2♣? Perhaps a tad unusual with just 4 of them, but the suit is chunky enough. The Double provoked a 3♣ bid by South and that is a contract which has all the hallmarks of down one. So, Garbage Stayman would be a resounding success on this board. Instead of being -100 in 1NT, E-W will likely end up +110 in 2♠, or +50 defending 3♣.
Well, the auctions this week might have been rather bland and less instructive than usual, but there has certainly been an abundance of delightful card play situations. Here’s another one. East ends up in 4♥ after a transfer auction, and let us say that South finds the lead which appears to be the safest, and which in fact is, namely a Diamond.
How would you play the Heart suit? If we had the Nine we could take the finesse twice against South with a high probability of holding our trump losers to just one. But as it is, our best shot is to lead towards the JT4, our hope being that North has the Qx or Kx … if she hops up we’ll finesse against her Partner on the next round, and if she doesn’t then her honor will be vanquished by the Ace on the next round. So, Declarer wins the opening lead, cashes a Spade, ruffs a Spade, leads a low Heart won by North … back comes a Diamond, then a winning trump finesse … eventually, the Club finesse loses, but the Ten comes down and 11 tricks roll in.
After West’s 2♠ bid, East had visions of something big, and used a little 2NT gadget, for more on which please see the Bidding Quiz. In the meantime, let’s just say that the 4♥ bid showed shortness which was enough to put a damper on East’s fond hopes of slam.
Against 4♠, South can bring the proceedings to a swift close by cashing the A♣ and continuing the suit, at which point a disgruntled Declarer will claim 11 tricks. But that’s an unlikely defense, perhaps a Heart opening lead would be more likely (not that this lead looks like such a great bargain either, by the way). Anyway, a Heart is led, trumps are drawn, and the Hearts are cashed (Declarer is looking for distributional clues before he tackles the crucial Diamond suit). Now the KQ♦ are cashed, both defenders following, and it’s decision time! Here are Declarer’s choices: - Lead a Diamond to the Ace, scoring 11 tricks if the Diamonds are not 3-3, and 12 when they are. - Finesse the T♦, scoring 10 or 12 tricks.
It might seem that “11 or 12” is better than “10 or 12”, and if the relative odds were even money then of course it would be. But there’s no even money here, North showed up with all four trumps, and also followed to all 3 Hearts. As the trumps were being drawn, South had some pitches to make, probably 3 Hearts and a Club. If that was the case, North will be known to have started with 8 major cards, and South with just 5. We’d say that makes South a clear favorite to hold both remaining Diamonds. Making 6 if Declarer trusts his judgment, for a positively gruntled +480.
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