From                   17th May, 2006, Board 23

                                          Theme                Fishing for Clues

                                          Difficulty            * *

                                          Dlr North            Both Vul             Hands Rotated

                                                                                                 for Convenience

2NT was an asking bid, and 3♠ showed a good hand with 4 Hearts.  Your 5♣ no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time (it was Exclusion Roman Key Card), and 5♥ showed one Key Card (not counting the excluded A♣).

A trump is led, the K♥ is in the slot, and trumps are drawn in 3 rounds, East showing up with King doubleton.  The 5♥ contract is now assured … if Diamonds are 2-1, then it’s 12 tricks … and, if Diamonds are 3-0, how do we maximize our chances of cashing the right high Diamond first?

SOLUTION

Yes, sometimes just by asking the right question, the answer becomes obvious.  The way to guess the Diamonds correctly is to discover as much as possible about the rest of the hand.  All that is required is to cash the Spade winners and ruff the 4^th round of the suit.  As it happens, East shows out on the 4^th round of Spades, and now Declarer has a road map … East started with 5 cards in the majors, and West with 8 cards in the majors.  It’s pretty simple to presume that, if there is a 3-0 Diamond split, it will be East that has Qxx.  And so it turns out to be:

Keys for Success

   - Fishing for distributional clues before committing to the critical Diamond suit.