From                   6th February, 2008, Board 28

                                          Difficulty            * * *

                                          Dlr West            N-S Vul

After your bold 3NT bid, West leads the Q♣, a nice Dummy appears, and East discards the Spade Five.

Assuming that the Diamonds are brought in for one loser, you can count 9 sure tricks.  What’s the best way to play that Diamond suit?  And what’s the most promising plan to make an overtrick?

SOLUTION

First, the Diamond suit.  If the suit is 4-1 then the obvious safety play is to win Dummy’s Ace, and take a deep finesse on the second round if East plays low.  But there are two reasons not to do this:

-         If West has Jx or Qx of Diamonds and the A♠, then we’ll go down in a cold contract.

-         We’d like to use that A♦ entry to lead a Spade towards our hand, giving us the possibility of a Spade-Heart endplay against East if, as is quite likely, he holds the A♠ and the Q♥.

A better solution is to run the T♦ around to East at Trick Two.  This keeps West off lead, and we can still take a third round Diamond finesse if the suit is 4-1.  Here is the full deal:

East wins that Diamond trick and cannot return a Heart.  A Spade could also be dangerous, so East will probably go passive and return a Diamond.  That is won on the board, a Spade is led to the King.  Now Declarer can cash the Diamond winners, coming down to this end-position:

                                    Dummy

                                    ♠ Q97

                                    ♥ AJ2

                                    ♦

                                    ♣

            West                                        East

            ♠                                              ♠ AJT

            ♥ T53                                      ♥ Q87

            ♦                                              ♦

            ♣ JT7                                      ♣

                                    Declarer

                                    ♠ 6

                                    ♥ K94

                                    ♦

                                    ♣ K9

Now, the K♣ is cashed, a Spade is pitched from Dummy, and whatever East does he will get end-played:

-         If East pitches a Spade, Declarer will know that it is safe to exit a Spade.  There will only be two Spades unaccounted for, and once they have been cashed, East will be end-played in hearts.

-         If East pitches a Heart, Declarer will simply cash three Heart tricks.

Either way, it’s 10 tricks.

Keys to Success

-         Ducking a Diamond to East, preserving Dummy’s entry for a later Spade play

-         Counting the Spade discards to determine whether a Spade throw-in is safe

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