How many trump tricks? by Charles Goren

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Charles Goren

The Victoria Advocate – 17 Ene 1975

aaxx  How many trump tricks do you think West can take at a contract of two spades? One, perhaps two? Holland’s leading bridge journalist, Herman Filarski, reports that when this hand was played at a recent tournament, West succeeded in scoring all three of his trumps! After North’s takeout double, South elected to bid spades first, keeping his heart suit in reserve in case his opponents competed further in the minor suits.

Like many best laid plans this one went astray when North raised to two spades, so the 4-4 heart fit was missed.

Lead: K

West led the king of diamonds and, when East signalled encouragement with the nine, continued with the seven to his partner’s ace. East shifted to a low heart and the ten was allowed to win West continued with the king of hearts to dummy’s ace.

Entries to declarer’s hand were at a premium so he decided to force an entry with the queen of spades. To accomplish this, South led the jack of spades from dummy. West won the king and returned a diamond. Since ruffing with dummy’s low trump would again leave declarer without an entry to his hand, South elected to ruff with dummy’s ace.

Now he led the four of spades from the table and boldly finessed his nine. West’s ten won his side’s second trump trick, and when he played a fourth round of diamonds, East ruffed with the eight of trumps and declarer finally got to his hand by overruffing with the queen. Unfortunately, this promoted West’s seven for the defenders third trump trick, all won by West!

The success of the club finesse came as a small consolation to declarer. He had lost three trump tricks, two diamonds and a heart for down one, when most of the other North-South pairs were making a part score contract in hearts.