Taking Advantage

Hand of the Week

Dlr:
South
VUL:
E-W
North
♠ J 7 4
8 5 2
A J 8 6 3
♣ 9 3
South
♠ A K Q 9 8 6 2
A Q 3
5
♣ A K
West North East South
2♣
Pass 2 Pass 2♠
Pass 3♠ Pass 4NT
Pass 5 Pass 5NT
Pass 6♠ All Pass

West leads the ♣Q, and you see you have 11 winners. Obviously, if East has the K, you have 12 tricks. Can you improve your chances of making the contract?

Solution

The only additional possibility for a 12th trick is to set up a second trick in diamonds. If diamonds are 4-3, generally you will need three entries to ruff diamonds and fourth to enjoy the long diamond. That’s the case here:

North
♠ J 7 4
8 5 2
A J 8 6 3
♣ 9 3
West
♠ 10
K J 9 6
K 10 7 4
♣ Q J 10 6
East
♠ 5 3
10 7 4
Q 9 2
♣ K 8 7 4 2
South
♠ A K Q 9 8 6 2
A Q 3
5
♣ A K

You begin cashing the A and ruffing a diamond with the ♠Q, just in case the trumps are favorable. Now, how can you conjure three trump entries to the dummy? One possibility is to lead the ♠6 to dummy’s 7. When West started with a doubleton 10 in trumps, the ♠7 would give you your first entry. You could later lead the ♠9 to the ♠J and finally the ♠2 to the ♠4, achieving three entries in trumps.

The main difficulty with this is that when the finesse of the ♠7 fails you will lose an unnecessary trick in the trump suit, going down even when the K is onside. Secondly, if you lead the ♠6 intending to finesse, West might insert the ♠10 on the first round, forcing dummy’s jack and limiting you to only one more dummy entry in trumps.

A better idea is to lead the ♠9 to the jack on the first round of trumps. This benefits you when the ♠10 is singleton, without giving the defenders any extra chance in exchange. On the diagrammed deal, you win with dummy’s ♠J and ruff another diamond high. You then lead the ♠6 to dummy’s 7 and ruff another diamond high, setting up the suit. Finally you overtake your ♠2 with the 4 and enjoy a heart discard on the long diamond. You can even try for an overtrick by finessing the Q (of course you will be more than happy when the finesse fails).

As the cards lay, your entry-creating play (leading the ♠9 on the first round of trumps) was necessary to make the slam. So, whenever three trump entries are available to dummy you can establish a diamond for a discard whenever the suit break 4-3.

If there are only two trump entries to the dummy, you can set up a discard (or two) on the diamonds only when a defender began with K Q doubleton or tripleton. Otherwise you must fall back on the heart finesse.

If trumps were 3-0, there would be only one trump entry to dummy and you would have to take the heart finesse immediately after the ♠J won.