5th WORLD JUNIOR CAMP Vargesztes, Hungria Julio 2003
Here are three more hands from Mari”s class. Solutions attached below.
ANSWERS
1. This looks too easy! The natural thing to do is to take the first trick and unblock the diamond ace, then cross to a winner in dummy to set up the diamonds. But how do you get to dummy?
If you cross with a spade, the defence will take their diamond trick and cash two clubs. What do you discard? If you pitch a diamond the defence knock out your second spade winner, and you never score a second heart trick, since the defence have two clubs, a diamond, a heart and at least one spade to cash. If you try to get to dummy with a heart at trick three, South will win and clear the hearts and will get in to cash out the suit. The solution is simply to duck trick one.When you cross to the {A you can finesse in hearts and cannot be stopped from coming to nine tricks – dummy never gets squeezed since the hand is high, rather than having the problem with needing to set up a heart.
2. Another beautiful hand (watch out online casino Mari, I may steal this one!). The danger here is that North has 
Qx or Qxx and blocks the diamond suit by playing the Q on the second round.To avoid this you must duck the spade twice of course – then pitch a HEART from dummy on the third spade. Now cash the ]AK and then lead the diamond ace and run the jack. If North ducks, so do you, but if North covers, take the trick and cash your last heart to discard dummy”s blocking diamond.
3. What you have to do here is to protect yourself against North having four clubs and the K. When you win the 
Q at trick two you cash the 
A (if clubs are 5-0 you need the diamond finesse). Then come to hand with the AK and lead a club to dummy. If they are 4-1 South cannot usefully ruff in, so you win the K, cross to hand with a heart ruff to lead another club towards dummy, and then ruff the fourth club in hand. Now you can go to the A and pitch your diamond on the fifth club without any jeopardy.
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