Bridge - The Scotsman 23/02/13

THERE is an annual award for the best Norwegian declarer play of the season. Could you win it in 2012?

After a simple limit-raise auction North leads the two of hearts. You can see nine tricks, assuming spades break no worse than 3-1. A tenth might come if hearts break 3-3, or if the ace of clubs is onside. If neither of these chances works you will need to avoid losing two diamonds. How will you play?

South produces the jack of hearts at trick one, and you win the ace. You may as well draw trumps, noting that North has a singleton spade. He discards two clubs. After three rounds of spades you cash the king of hearts and play another heart to dummy’s queen. This time South shows out. What now?

It looks normal to try a club to the king, but if that loses North will cash a second club, then exit with a heart and you will have to tackle diamonds. You can avoid two diamond losers if North has KQx (unlikely, he might have led the king); or if South has KQx and can be endplayed; or if one defender has a doubleton honour, and you can guess which. But it would be much better to compel the defence to open up diamonds: provided the honours are split you can guarantee two tricks by playing second hand low. How can you compel them to open up diamonds?

Geo Tislevoll ruffed dummy’s last heart and led a low club towards the ten! North won the jack and cashed the ace, but then had to lead a diamond or give a ruff and discard. South won the queen of diamonds and had to return a diamond into dummy’s ace-jack. Note that this line works whenever South has the ace of clubs, and has to win the second round. The advantage is that North’s safe heart exit has been removed.