From                 21st November, Board 21

                                          Theme              Hold-Up Play

                                          Difficulty           * *

                                          Dlr West          E-W Vul               Hands Rotated

                                                                                                for Convenience

West cashes the A♣ and K♣ (South playing the Seven and then the Nine).  He then shifts to the Heart Seven, low from Dummy, the Ten from South.

If you are to make this contract, you’ll need the Spade finesse to work, and you’ll also need to avoid losing two Hearts and a Diamond.  How do you plan to achieve this?

SOLUTION

If Hearts are 3-3, we can use the 13^th Heart for a Diamond pitch.  Alternatively, if the Diamond honors are split (or if West has both), we can double-hook the suit and pitch a Heart loser on the third round of Diamonds.  But it won’t do to win the Heart and continue the suit, the defense will establish their Diamond before we can set up the long Heart.

The solution is simple enough, we just duck the first round of Hearts, after which the defense is helpless.  If they persist with Hearts, we’ll set up our Heart in time to pitch a Diamond, and if they attack Diamonds, we’ll set up a Diamond to pitch a Heart.

	♠ J743 ♥ J853 ♦ AT6 ♣ Q4
♠ 92 ♥ K97 ♦ K43 ♣ AKJ65	North    West          East            South	♠ K5 ♥ QT6 ♦ Q8752 ♣ 987
	♠ AQT86 ♥ A42 ♦ J9 ♣ T32

Keys to Success

   - Realizing that the contract can be made if a Heart can be pitched on a Diamond, or vice versa

   - Holding up on the first round of Hearts