From                 2nd August, 2006, Board 16

                                          Difficulty           * * * *

                                          Dlr West           E-W Vul
 

North leads the T♠, covered by the Q♠ and the K♠.  South shifts to a Heart, won on the board. 

At this point, it’s impossible to define clearly what is your objective.  Are you struggling to make this one?  Or are overtricks in your future?  However, there are these three considerations:

(a)    You must decide the optimal way to tackle the trump suit;

(b)   Likewise for Diamonds;

(c)    And while all this is going on, you would like to manage a couple of Heart ruffs on the board.

In the absence of other considerations, the way to play the trump suit is to cash the ♣AK, hoping to drop the Queen … but that is not very helpful here, because, after two Heart ruffs on the board, cashing the AK♣ will just squash Dummy’s Jack and set up their Ten.

As for Diamonds, the best percentage play is to finesse Dummy’s Nine, and, if it loses to South’s Jack, to finesse against South’s hoped-for King later.  But, if the hand develops in such a way as to make the percentage play impractical, there are other lines which are not far behind.  In other words, the play of the Diamond suit will be dictated by the course of events.

Plan the play.

SOLUTION

After winning the A♥ on the board at Trick Two, we suggest that you take an immediate deep Club finesse of the Nine … we expect it to lose, but it puts us in control, and does not prevent us from getting those Heart ruffs on the board.   To our pleasant surprise, it wins.  This piece of good fortune means that we can delay the Hearts ruffs a little longer and use this entry to our hand to play on Diamonds.  We lead a low Diamond from our hand, and it goes 8, 9, Jack.  Now, the defense cannot prevent us from making 11 tricks, because this is the full hand.

South can return a Club, but then it goes Heart ruff, Diamond to Ten, Heart ruff, after which the Q♦ is the coup de grace.  11 tricks.

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