Love all Dealer South
Pairs
After a transfer auction North raises to five notrump, offering South a choice of playing in six spades or six notrump. West leads the nine of diamonds. How do you plan the play? How would you play seven notrump? Solution
In six notrump the
best line is to win the diamond lead in dummy and play a spade towards
the jack.
If spades play for four tricks (queen onside with a reasonable break or a 3-3 spade break) you are home with four spade, four club, two heart and two diamond tricks. If spades play for three tricks (East holding Qxxxx) then you will need the heart finesse, unless East is astute enough to switch to a heart after winning the spade queen, in which case you wouldn't be able to risk the heart finesse. If spades play for two tricks (West holding Qxxxx) then you will need the heart finesse and a squeeze of some sort for another trick. In seven notrump you only have ten tricks on top, you must assume that the heart finesse is working and that East will be under pressure in three suits, holding something like  Qxxx  Qxxx  Qxx  xx.Now after cashing the spade ace (in case there is singleton queen) and the other top diamond and three clubs the position will be as below
When the
club king is lead East is triple squeezed. Discarding a heart or
a spade gives South two extra tricks in the suit discarded, whereas a
diamond discard allows South to play a diamond next squeezing East
again between the major suits.
Unfortunately for the declarer who reached seven notrump at the table there was no play for the contract on the lie of the cards. |
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