Hand of the Week, Vol. 2 No. 7

Here is another, more challenging, declarer play problem from the Friday 06 March club game. You are playing 4. West stuck in a 2 bid over your 1 opening and led a neutral small heart, not giving you any gifts:

Dealer East None vul	J T 4 3 7 6 2 3 A J 7 6 4
	A Q 9 6 5 A K 5 K T 5 K 8

How do you plan to take as many tricks as possible? It's a matchpoint game, so not only should you make your contract, look for the best chance to safely try for an eleventh trick.

You have a potential loser in spades, a loser each in hearts and diamonds, and have to make sure that you're able to get rid of your other two diamonds (either by trumping them or setting up the spades.)

You have three finesses to choose from -- against the K, against the Q, and against the A (lead a diamond toward the king, and if East takes the ace, discard a heart from dummy on the K, enabling you to ruff your third heart later -- as well as the possibility of trying to set up the clubs by ruffing.

These finesses are not 50% propositions. bidding gives you a big clue: West overcalled at the two-level. He has to have almost all of the 15 outstanding high-card points. The diamond finesse is all but guaranteed to fail; the odds are against the spade finesse working, but in favor of the club finesse working.

I chose to play the hand according to those revised odds: rather than wasting the A, my only fast dummy entry, to take the spade finesse, I gave up on the opportunity to avoid a trump loser, and concentrated on avoiding the heart loser. I cashed the A (an insurance policy against a singleton king, and against losing too many ruffs if a side suit breaks terribly) and K, and then led the 8 intending to finesse the J. West popped up with the Q on the second club, so I won the ace and led the J, discarding my losing heart. I lost only one spade and one diamond. Pairs who didn't take West's overcall into account were likely to make only four.

Dealer East None vul	J T 4 3 7 6 2 3 A J 7 6 4
K 8 J 4 3 A Q J 8 7 4 Q 9		7 2 Q T 9 8 9 6 2 T 5 3 2
	A Q 9 6 5 A K 5 K T 5 K 8

West	North	East	South
		Pass	1
2	3	Pass	4
Pass	Pass	Pass

One note about our auction: after the overcall, North jumped to 3 to show a hand with limited high-card values but good 4-card spade support; with a standard limit raise, North would cuebid 3.

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