Bridge - The Scotsman 12/05/2012

Saturday’s puzzle...

Some plays in the trump suit are quite exciting. Can you experience a thrill here?

Your 3S overcall is strong, so partner raises to game. North leads the king of hearts and you win the ace. This is likely to be your only visit to dummy, so you take the opportunity to finesse the jack of clubs, which scores. It appears that you have just three losers, a heart, a diamond and the ace of spades. But when you lead the king of spades North discards a low heart. If South were to win the ace of spades you could enter dummy with the queen and finesse against the ten, but South refuses to help; he plays low on the king of spades. Can you see how to avoid two trump losers?

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Somehow you have to force South to let you into dummy so that you can take a spade finesse. Start by cashing the ace and king of clubs to remove safe exit cards – if clubs are not 3-3 you have no chance. When everybody follows you know that North’s original distribution was 0-6-4-3. Next cash the ace of diamonds and exit with a heart. At this point the defenders must cash a diamond – a heart gives a ruff and discard, and a spade is just what you want. They are likely force you with a third diamond, reducing your hand to four spades. South has three spades and a heart. At this point you lead a spade to the queen and South takes the ace. At trick eleven he exits with his heart, which you ruff with the two of spades and overruff in dummy with the four. You have no spades left in dummy, but a plain card will do in the two-card ending when you have SJ9 and South has 107.

Did you spot the key to success? You had to cherish the most important card in your hand: the two of spades.

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