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One of my Favorite Hands by Alex Smirnov

Source: ABF Youth

Piekarek - Alex Smirnov
Piekarek – Alex Smirnov

In an interview with Alex Smirnov (Smirny) made by Andy Hung in 2012, Andy asked him:

Do you have a favourite hand that you would like to share with us?

Yes I do. This was a hand that I declared at the 2010 European Team Championships in Ostende (Belgium) when we played against the Russian Team:

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Dubinin started off with three rounds of hearts with Gromov ruffing the third. Gromov immediately returned the jack of trumps and I won it with the Ace. I drew a second round of trumps and found out that West started off with 2-6 in the majors to East’s 3-1. I needed the clubQ to be onside for the contract to have any chance and my tenth trick may come from either clubs 3-3 or if the diamond finesse is onside. I then played a club to the Ace and finessed successfully with the clubJ, noting Dubinin had shown up with the club109. This was now the position:

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Based on West’s club plays, I decided that clubs were more likely to be 2-4 thus placing East’s shape with 3-1-5-4. I now needed to guess the location of the diamondK and here is how I played out the rest of the hand. I played off two trumps – West discarded two hearts, I discarded the diamond6 from dummy, and East discarded two diamonds.

Dubinin & Gromov
Dubinin & Gromov

I now played the final trump discarding the diamondJ from dummy and East was now helpless to the criss-cross squeeze. If East discarded the diamond10 I would then play a diamond to the Ace and with the diamondK dropping, I can come back to hand with clubK to get to my good diamondQ. If East discarded a club I would then cash my clubK and with the fourth club in dummy becoming good, the diamondA was the entry to get there. This was particularly satisfying because the hand was broadcasted on vugraph! Andy: Very nice played!

Andy Hung talks about bridge, a few years ago:

Esta entrada también está disponible en: Spanish

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