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Vuln: None
You are: S
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Board # 1 Dealer: Vuln:
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Everyday Defense | |
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Go Back
Which Suit?
By Paul Bowyer
On this deal, you will see that you can set up potential tricks in every suit - the problem is, you have no Aces!
Bidding:
Everything fairly natural, although some might prefer a 1â™ response on those North cards..
Opening Lead:
♥9
Play:
This hand looks like you have stoppers everywhere but no sure tricks anywhere (lacking all four aces!).
At least there is one fairly obvious suit to start setting up - and that's the club suit.
Therefore, on the first trick you should play the ♥K to dislodge that high card.
Firstly you want to try and tempt your RHO to win the trick (to give us three immediate heart tricks), but if your RHO doesn't take it, at least you will then have the ♥Q and ♥10 as possible entries back to hand (more on this later).
So after winning the ♥K you lead the ♣Q from dummy as RHO takes it with the ace and switches to the ♦6. You play low and your LHO wins with the ♦Q, and with no clear suit to return, your LHO switches back to a club.
You can take this trick in either hand, but the suit that you will play next is diamonds.
Your LHO ducks the ♦K and you are back in your hand.
So far, you have a total of six tricks via one heart, one diamond, and four clubs.
However, it is still too early to cash those clubs because you will be squeezing dummy out of those stoppers!
Therefore you need to find a way to just set up one trick but also have an entry back to hand to cash the good clubs.
And the only way to do that is the lead the ♥10. Whether your RHO ducks or takes the trick, you will have the trick and the entry you need to cash the clubs.
This was the reason why you had to play the ♥K on the first trick.
Had the ♥K still been in dummy, your RHO would be able to duck the ♥K (or take the ♥10)  to prevent a heart entry back to your hand.
But of course, it probably doesn't matter what you do on this hand.
You have too many stoppers and intermediates for the contract to go off!
What I mean by this is, it is possible for you to lose a maximum of two spades, one heart, two diamonds and a club (which are the tricks that your opponents can probably take off you) and still allow you to make your contract anyway.
However, the key to this hand is to not cash your clubs too early because if you do, you will be discarding some useful cards which might ultimately help the opponents set up that suit.
For example, imagine if you had discarded two spades from dummy and at one point your RHO is on lead and switches to a spade ... you will have a nasty guess and if you get it wrong, the opponents may then cash out the spade suit!
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Click to Play | Board List |
Which Suit? | |
Everyday Defense | |
Heart Attack | |
Who's got what? | |
The Unexpected |