The Plan XXIII by Tim Bourke

Deal 814 IBPA Column Service.

Dealer North N/S Vul

A 2  K 4  A Q J 10 9 6 3           10 5

K 7 6 3  Q J 8 6  5 2  Q J 6

The Auction:

West	North	East	South
	1	Pass	1
Pass	3	Pass	3NT
Pass	Pass	Pass

West led the jack of spades and declarer paused to make a plan. Clearly, if the diamond finesse failed, so would the contract.

Thus, declarer won the first trick in hand with his king and took the winning diamond finesse. Declarer was about to play the ace of diamonds when he saw that, if he did so, he would only make his contract if the king of diamonds were doubleton.

The problem was that he would have only eight tricks if West had started with three diamonds. The other issue was that he had no fast entry back to hand.

The only hope was to give the defender with the ace of hearts an insoluble problem.

So, at trick three, he called for dummy’s king of hearts. This put West in a quandary: if he took the trick with his ace, declarer would be able to re-enter his hand with a heart to repeat the diamond finesse.

As a result, he allowed the king of hearts to hold, giving declarer his ninth trick. All that remained was for declarer to play the ace and queen of diamonds. After winning the king of diamonds, West did the best he could by shifting to a low club. The defenders took the ace and king of clubs and the ace of hearts but declarer had the rest.

The complete deal:

	A 2  K 4  A Q J 10 9 6 3           10 5
J 10 5             A 10 9 3  K 8 4  K 8 2		Q 9 8 4         7 5 2  7          A 9 7 4 3
	K 7 6 3  Q J 8 6  5 2  Q J 6

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