From                   6th January, 2010, Board 14

                                          Difficulty            * * *

                                          None Vul

West cashes the ♥A and gets the discouraging Four from East.  West shifts to a trump, after which things look bleak!  From the bidding and the play to the first trick it appears that West has overcalled with ♥AKxx.  It also appears that there are five defensive tricks.  But not with you as Declarer, now is your time to be a star.  You win the trump shift in your hand and draw the remaining trumps.  It turns out that West started with four Clubs … you pitch a Spade and a Diamond from Dummy … and East pitches two Spades and a Heart.  What next?

SOLUTION

The important thing is to keep East from gaining the lead, and the best chance is to find West with King doubleton in Spades and also the ♦K, in which case he will be the victim of an end-play.  After drawing trumps, you lead a Spade to the Ace, lose a Spade to West’s King, and the hoped-for end-play gives you your 9^th trick.

That was nicely done, but if Zia had been sitting West he would have dumped the ♠K on the first round of Spades!  No problem!  Your clever counter would be to duck that trick (remember, the idea is to keep East off lead) and to win the Spade return with Dummy’s Ace.  When West shows out on the third Spade, you can count his original distribution as 2=4=3=4.  So you cash that last trump and West is strip-squeezed.  It’s a 4-card ending:

-         If West comes down to ♥Kx ♦Kx, you play ♦A and out a Diamond, end-playing him in Hearts.

-         If West comes down to ♥K ♦Kxx, you throw him in with a Heart and make a surprising overtrick!

-         If West comes down to ♥Kxx ♦K, you can cash two Diamonds.

Good defense, Zia, but not good enough!
 

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