Reading Eagle – 29 Ago 2006
West dealer North-South vulnerable
Opening lead — king of hearts.
Assume you become declarer at four spades after West opens the bidding with one heart. West leads the king of hearts and shifts to a trump. How would you play the hand?
Since West is virtually certain to hold the ace of clubs as part of his opening bid, his trump shift poses a real threat to your contract. Without the trump lead, you could have negotiated a club ruff in dummy after losing two clubs, thereby limiting yourself to three losers.
But the trump shift has put a serious crimp in that plan, since there is now a danger that persistent trump leads by the defenders will exhaust dummy’s trumps before you can nut your third club. A substitute plan is therefore needed. When the deal occurred….
South found the answer lie: he won the spade at trick two, drew trumps, cashed the K-J of diamonds and led a diamond to the queen. The queen of hearts was then led and a club discarded. West took the queen with the ace. but found himself in a most uncomfortable position. If he returned the jack of hearts, declarer would ruff, cross to the ace of diamonds and discard another club on the established heart nine; if he returned a low heart instead, South would obtain the club discard immediately. And if he led a club, declarer would score a trick with the king of clubs. All roads thus led to 10 tricks.
South’s play was noteworthy on two counts. First, he recognized the potential of dummy’s Q-9-8 of hearts and took full advantage of it. Secondly, he handled the diamonds perfectly, cashing three rounds of the suit to make sure West couldn’t exit with a diamond when he was thrown on lead. At the same time, South retained a diamond entry to dummy so that West couldn’t exit safely with the heart jack.
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