Bridge - The Scotsman 26/03/2012

There was only one swing on this board from the second Camrose weekend. Frances Hinden for England overcalled just 1S on the South hand; the Irish East-West bid up to 4H, and when South now bid 4S they doubled.

Against 4S West led partner’s suit. South discarded a diamond on the ace of hearts, ducked a club, won West’s trump switch in hand, ruffed a club and claimed ten tricks. Learned analysis suggests that a trump lead is more effective, cutting out the club ruff, but Deep Finesse says 4S can always be made, so analysis had to go a little deeper.

If West leads a spade declarer wins cheaply in hand, preserving the queen as an entry. It is too late to duck a club: West wins and plays a second spade, leaving declarer with four losers. The only chance is to establish a diamond as the tenth trick. This requires a lot of luck. East must hold both ace and king of diamonds, along with a singleton spade so that he cannot lead a second trump. In which case there is no point in leading a diamond to the jack, you must hope that West has D109x and lead low to the eight. East wins and returns a club to try to get partner on lead, but declarer grabs the ace and plays a second diamond. West wins the second club and plays a spade, but too late. Declarer wins in dummy and takes two discards on the ace of hearts and queen of diamonds. Easy!