Some hands present several options to declarer and he must weigh each
of them before deciding which path to take. A lot of declarers
went wrong with this hand.
Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)
Hand #17
Dlr
N
Vul
E/W
KQ107
K83
K7
AKJ5
A94
A64
J86543
4
J65
10752
Q10
9763
832
QJ9
A92
Q1082
West
North
East
South
1
Pass
1NT
Pass
3NT
All Pass
BIDDING: North was too
strong to open 1NT but had an easy raise to game.
PLAY: West led his fourth best diamond and declarer won
the second round in dummy. The carding told declarer that West
had either five or six diamonds so the contract was in danger. If
the two missing aces were split, South would have to guess which ace
West held and attack it. Then (if the diamonds were 5-3) when
East won the other ace, he would have no diamond to return. If
East held both aces, there was no problem but if West held both aces,
declarer could go down. Then declarer saw a possible
solution...he came to his hand with a club and led a low spade.
When the king won, declarer switched to hearts and easily wrapped up
nine tricks. If West had gone up with the spade ace to lead
another diamond, declarer could still make the hand if the spades were
3-3 or the ace of hearts was with East. Note that playing hearts
first will not work.
In a local game, seven pairs went down while six made the
contract. But four of those six successful pairs made overtricks
so I can only assume it was played by North and East did not find a
diamond lead.
