Bridge - The Scotsman 14/07/2012

Published on 14/07/2012 03:39

Saturday’s puzzle...

It is always disappointing to pick up a power house, bid sensibly and yet not achieve a plus score. Can you avoid such disappointment here?

West’s sequence showed a balanced hand of about 25-27 HCP, so East was confident that his ace would be enough to make game. North leads the five of spades and South produces the king. How would you play?

You have eight Sure Tricks – four clubs, one diamond, two hearts and the ace of spades. The ace of hearts would be a ninth if only you could get at it, but there is no semblance of another entry to dummy. You could reach dummy by overtaking the queen of hearts with the ace, using the dummy entry to finesse the queen of diamonds. That is a 50 per cent shot at a ninth trick. Can you see anything better?

The opening lead might give you an idea. If the five of spades is fourth highest North cannot have more than five spades – you can see the three and four. Provided he has the queen you can endplay him. Start by ducking the king of spades. If South continues spades win the ace and cash your winners, four clubs and the king-queen of hearts. Now play the jack of spades. If North wins the queen he may cash two more spades, but then must lead a red card, either a heart to dummy’s ace or a diamond into your ace-queen. He might avoid the endplay by refusing to take the queen of spades, but you do not mind that – the jack of spades is your ninth trick.

South might try to foil your plan by switching to a diamond at trick two, but dummy’s ten will prove its worth. You can duck the diamond switch to North. Even if he can win the jack and switch to an unhelpful heart you can establish a second diamond trick by force.