Bridge - The Scotsman 25/01/2012

To conclude our series on entry management, here is a rather spectacular example of entry-creating technique.

West led the queen of hearts against South’s 3NT. Declarer had five Sure Tricks in his own hand, and could easily create more in clubs. If the suit broke 2-2, or the queen was singleton, he had nine tricks on top, but suppose someone had Qxx?

In that case they would win the third club and play a second heart, restricting declarer to just eight tricks. Yet there are three lovely spade winners in dummy – can you think of a way to reach them?

The only possible entry to dummy is the ten of clubs. You might cash the ace of spades, then lead a low club towards dummy. If West has the queen and ducks the ten will score, you can cash three spades, discarding diamonds, then make the rest of the clubs; if instead West takes his queen the ten will provide an entry to dummy on the second round of clubs, and you can cash the spades and return to hand with the third club to make 11 tricks. But playing a club to the ten will not work if East has the queen. The way to make the contract whenever clubs break no worse than 3-1 is to cash the ace of spades at trick two, then lead the jack of clubs from hand! If that scores you have six club tricks and nine in all. If someone takes the queen the ten has become an entry to dummy’s spades.