Take all your chances at bridge – 8 by Eddie Kantar

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Kantar-Hammann

denver 2015 1DENVER FALL 2015 NABC – NOV 26-DIC 6

The 2015 Fall NABC is being played in Denver let us look some interesting deals from the bulletin’s series: Take all your chances at bridge by Eddie Kantar.

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With only your side vulnerable, West opens 3, partner passes and East ups the ante to 4. You have no qualms about bidding 5, and everyone passes. The Q is led. Plan the play.

Solution

You are in the dummy for the last time and have to decide whether to lead up to the K or take the club finesse. The club finesse is much less than 50% because you can’t pick up K-x-x-(x) in the East hand. Play the odds and lead a diamond up to the king, a 50% play unless West started with a singleton diamond and didn’t lead it – not too likely as most players lead singletons even when they don’t have one.

If the K loses to the ace and today is your lucky day, the K will drop under the ace (13%). You will make this contract about 55% of the time. Even if you had the  A K J 10 x x x x, you should still lead a diamond at trick two as you have a reasonable chance of dropping the Q (a little more than 50%) if the K loses to West’s ace. Two chances are better than one. The full deal:

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