Mr. New, the avid kibitizer, usually sits on the sidelines, in that position, seeing all four hands, he consistently suggests fine plays which could have been made by the active’ players, he is always amazed at how much harder it is to see and execute these plays in actual combat.
NORTH DEALER. Both sides vulnerable
TAKE TODAY’S HAND for example. He bid very well, making a slam try with a cue-bid of five hearts to show the ace of that suit. Mr. Champion accepted the invitation, put the hand in six spades and Mr. Meek led the 10 of trumps.
Mr. New won in his own hand with the Jack of spades. He won the second trick with the nine of spades under playing the eight from dummy. Now he considered taking two club finesses if the queen were on his left, he could discard the queen of hearts and a diamond on the third and fourth club leads. Then after stripping his hand and dummy of hearts he could lead a diamond toward dummy and finesse the nine. If Mr Abel won with the queen or king he would be hopelessly entrapped.
However if the club finesse lost, there would he no play for 12 tricks —even if the king of hearts were favorably located.
Finally, Mr. New decided to finesse diamonds twice hoping to find the king and queen divided. He led a diamond and finessed the nine. Mr Abel took the queen and led back a heart.
* * * DILEMMA, If the heart finesse lost, the contract was down. But maybe the heart finesse was the only way to make it. After long thought Mr. New put in the queen and down he went
He should have given himself an additional chance by testing the clubs first. Starting at trick three, cash dummy’s ace and king of clubs; lead the jack of clubs and ruff it. If the queen does not fall it’s too bad. But you have lost nothing. Actually the queen would have shown from Mr. Abel’s hand on the third round of the suit.
Dummy’s fourth club would have furnished a parking place for the queen of hearts. After that all Mr. New needed was to find either the king or queen of diamonds or both of those cards in Mr. Meek’s hand.