From                   October 4th, 2006, Board 16

                                          Theme                Cross-Ruffing

                                          Difficulty            * * *

                                          Dlr West            E-W Vul

West leads the J♣, won by Dummy's Ace, East playing the Ten.

Perhaps you shouldn't have bid so much, because 9 tricks are far from certain.  You can count 3 natural Spade tricks, 2 Hearts and a Club, that's just 6.  A couple of Club ruffs would take us up to 8.  And a Diamond trick would be 9.  What is the best sequence of plays?

SOLUTION

Clearly, we cannot afford to touch the trump suit yet, lest they win the Ace and continue trumps, and then play a third round when they get in with a Club or Diamond.  Best play surely has to be to establish our Diamond trick immediately, before going after the Club ruffs ... we would not be happy if West were to pitch Diamonds as we were ruffing Clubs.  So, we'd play a Diamond at Trick Two ... we have a guess of course when East plays low, but as East has the majority of the enemy HCP's, it seems like the best guess to fly with the King.  When this wins, we lose a Club, and even if they now play two rounds of trumps, we can still make the rest of our trumps separately.

Keys to Success

   - Realizing that 5 trump tricks were needed to make the contract

   - Setting up a Diamond trick early and guessing the suit correctly based on the auction

Post Script

Does East do better to fly with the A♦ at Trick Two?  He can shift to a trump, won by West's Ace, then a trump continuation run around to Declarer's Seven.  Now South exits with a Club (the Eight, of course, to keep West off lead), wins the return, cashes winners and has a high cross-ruff for 9 tricks.