This
deal is from the online Lancashire league.
West
leads the nine of hearts. With
two top club losers and two diamond losers and the
heart finesse surely wrong this contract
looks extremely precarious.
First
try is to drop a singleton king of trumps, but no
luck there. So you play another trump won by
East as West follows. East plays the jack of
spades.
You
now need to do something with the clubs before the
defence realises that they need to switch to
diamonds. So you win the king of spades and
try a club to the nine, no luck again when East wins
the jack and perseveres with a spade. You win
this in dummy and play another club to the six, ten
and ace. West now switches to the jack of
diamonds which you win with the ace while East plays
the king. You try for your penultimate chance
that someone is down to a singleton king of clubs by
ruffing a club in hand. Again no luck, so you
ruff a spade in dummy, ruff the last club in hand
and exit with a diamond. This last chance
works, East started with king queen doubleton of
diamonds and has to give you a ruff and discard.
(The
contract was also makeable by leading the queen of
clubs from dummy on the third round of clubs to pin
the eight and set up the seven).
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