From 9th May, 2007, Board 3 Difficulty * * * Dlr
South E-W Vul
South leads the Club Four, which is described as “3rd and 5th”.
After the friendly opening lead you can count 4 trumps and 4 Clubs and the A♦. That’s 9 tricks. Surely a ruff in one hand or the other will be the 10th, and maybe the A♠ is onside for 11. Looks easy enough, so you cash the A♥ and K♥, but North pitches a Diamond on the second round of the suit. Now what?
That opening Club lead was helpful but not informative, South could have started with any number of Clubs from one to four. If North has the A♠ and South started with a singleton Club then the contract is going down whether you draw the remaining trumps immediately or not. It looks best to postpone the drawing of the trumps and set up a ruff in one hand or the other. Should you go after a Spade ruff? Or a Diamond ruff?
SOLUTION
A quick look at the entry situation is enough to tell us that trying for a Spade ruff will not work. For example, after that second round of trumps, we lead a Spade towards the board. Let’s say that South jumps up with the Ace and exits a trump. Now, we cash the K♠, cross to the J♣ (hopefully not ruffed), ruff a Spade, but we are stranded in the Dummy, there’s no way back to our hand to extract that last trump.
So, we do better to try for a Diamond ruff, which works fine, as the full layout is:
After the second round of Hearts, we play A♦ and a low Diamond. North plays the Queen and returns a Club, taken by Dummy’s Ace. Now, Declarer ruffs a Diamond high, finesses the Heart, cashes the Clubs, and at Trick Twelve leads a Spade towards the board. Making 11 tricks.
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