Bulletins
The deal comes from the 2010 World Open Pairs Championship. And features one of the greats of modern bridge, Jeff Meckstroth.
West led the ten of diamonds to the queen, king and ace. Given that his opponents had competed to the three level on limited values and only an eight-card fit, Meckstroth judged that East must have a lot of distribution and that trumps rated to be four-one. Next, he decided that had West held ace-king to four spades he would have doubled, given the form of scoring. Noth many of us would have the faith in our judgment to lead the two of spades from hand at trick two but that is what Meckstroth did, and East won the bare king.
East returned a diamond to the eight and jack and Meckstroth played the queen of clubs to the king and ace, followed by the queen of spades to West’s ace. West returned a heart to the queen and ace and Meckstroth now decided that he was likely to be 4-3-2-4, as he would probably have played a diamond had he held a third card in the suit. This was the ending:
 7 9 4 J 10 7 3 |
||
| 9 8 7 6 9 8 4 |
K 8 5 4 9 7 6 |
|
| J 10 3 J 10 6 5 |
Meckstroth cashed the jack of spades then the ten, on which he discarded dummy’s remaining heart, then he led a club and, when West followed with the four, put in dummy’s seven. He could now cash the rest of the clubs and both hearts went away from hand; making eleven for +200.
Note the importance of throwing the heart on the ten of spades to retain the little diamond in dummy. Had West split the nine-eight of clubs, he would have needed the diamond there to give him an entry back to hand, via a ruff, to take the club finesse, or would have been held to ten tricks.