Source: 24th European Youth Team Championships Bulletins. Click Aqui to read Daily Play Problem Nº 5.
West kicks-off with the two of hearts (1st, 3rd and 5th), and you either win the opening lead with dummy´s jack or the
queen in hand? But what are you going to do at trick two?
A) Play a spade to the jack?
B) Finesse the jack of diamonds?
C) Ace of diamonds then the jack?
Try to find a solution before you continue reading…
Solution:
If you finesse in diamonds or cash the ace of diamonds and play the jack of diamonds, you are going down when the layout is as above. East will win with the king of diamonds and return a heart. You don’t have the tempo to also establish the spades before the defense has cleared the heart suit. Instead you should play on spades, besides, when the spades broke 3-3 you even managed to get an extra trick. How do you know that you should start playing on spades? Since the ace of spades is the only potential entry card for West to get in and cash his hearts that specific entry has to be removed. And when you later finesse in diamonds, its only East that can get in, and when East doesn’t have any hearts left there isn’t any danger.