Another
deal from a Gerard Faulkner (Seniors KO) match
played by John Holland.
West
led a small club against three notrump. This
ran to the nine of clubs. John cashed the ace
of clubs while West followed with the jack,
suggesting that he held the spade ace. John now had
four club, two diamond and two heart tricks.
He could cross to dummy, cash the top clubs and try
the diamond finesse making nine or eleven tricks
depending on the diamond layout. John decided
that a better plan was to play a low diamond towards
the ten making eleven tricks if West has the diamond
queen or ten tricks if East has the diamond
queen. However, West erred by not taking his
diamond queen, so now five rounds of diamonds
followed by the king and ace of hearts squeezed West
down to the singleton ace of spades and 10xx of
clubs. John was able to exit with a spade and
West had to concede the last three tricks to dummy,
for an unexpected three overtricks.
Thanks to John Holland for reporting this deal |