From                  Board 3, 24th May, 2006

                                          Themes             Card Reading

                                                                    Throw-In Play

                                          Difficulty           * * *

                                          Dlr East            N-S Vul               Hands Rotated

                                                                                                for Convenience
 

West’s 2♦ was preemptive.

West leads the 5♣, and, when Dummy goes down, you can see that your conservative 3♠ seems to have worked out well.

Fearing a ruff, you fly with Dummy’s Ace and play A♠, both defenders playing a low Spade … then a low Spade to East’s Queen, West pitching a Diamond.  East cashes the other high Spade, cashes K♣, and exits a Club, with West pitching Diamonds.

Plan the play.

SOLUTION

The danger, of course, is thatyou’ll lose 2 Heart tricks.  One solution would be to take the Diamond finesse through the Diamond bidder, hoping to gain a Heart pitch.  Any other options?

Let’s start by determining West’s original distribution … one Spade, one Club, 11 red cards.  West preempted in Diamonds, so he must have at least 6.  Could he be 1-5-6-1?  Surely not, it would be quite bizarre to preempt in a minor holding a 5-card major.  How about 1-3-8-1?  No, surely West with an 8-card Diamond suit, White versus Red, would have done more than bid just 2♦.  It seems, if his bidding is to be trusted, that he started with 1-4-7-1 shape, it’s the only possibility that makes reasonable sense.  That leaves East with 3-2-3-5.

Where are the Heart honors?  They are probably split, or both with East, so the winning line is to cash the Clubs, A♦, ruff a Diamond, then play A♥ followed by a low Heart from both hands.  We are betting that East started with a doubleton Heart, and that at least one of then is the King or Queen.  Then, on the second round of Hearts, East wins with his honor and is forced to concede a ruff and discard.

	♠ A654 ♥ J854 ♦ AQ ♣ AT9
♠ 3 ♥ QT62 ♦ T876532 ♣ 5	North    West         East            South	♠ KQ8 ♥ K9 ♦ K94 ♣ K8764
	♠ JT972 ♥ A73 ♦ J ♣ QJ32

Keys to Success

   - Reading the opening lead as a likely singleton and jumping up with the Ace

   - Analyzing West's bidding and play and deducing the complete distribution of the hand

   - End-playing East in Hearts