From                   7th November, 2007, Board 7

                                          Theme                Safety Play

                                          Difficulty            * *

                                          Dlr South           Both Vul

West’s opening lead is a low Heart, and you can see that your minimum Weak Two has propelled you into a precarious game.

Clearly you must lose a minimum of two Spades and the A♦, so the Q♦ had better be onside.  How do you play this one?

SOLUTION

You are already counting on the winning Diamond finesse, but how about the trump suit?  Must you rely upon a 3-2 trump break?  No, you have a safety play, you can win the opening Heart on the board, and lead a low trump.  If East plays low, you’ll insert the Ten.  Here is the full hand:

On the actual hand the finesse of the Ten surprisingly wins and the trump losers are held to two, notwithstanding the 4-1 trump break.  OK, suppose that the Ten loses to West, and another Heart is led.  Now, Declarer must take a second trump finesse, catering for the case where West has the singleton King or Queen or Jack.  This line of play works whenever trumps are 3-2 or whenever East has 4 Spades (in some circumstances, even a 5-0 break might be manageable).

Keys to Success

   - Taking the trump safety play ...

   - ... and, if the first trump finesse had failed, then finessing a second time.
 

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