This deal is from
Manchester Green Point Swiss Pairs in March.
After East opens one diamond and South overcalls one heart West raises to three diamonds pre-emptively. This gives North a problem as he is not really worth a raise to three hearts. However, with four card support and some useful values he decided to stretch slightly. South with sixteen points, three aces and a six card suit bid game. West led the seven of diamonds to the king and ace. It looks as though this contract requires both the spade and club finesses, but since there is no way that the defence won't cash their diamond trick when possible, South exited with the jack of diamonds. West won, and expecting his partenr's values to be in clubs rather than hearts returned a club. South won and cashed the ace of clubs before exiting with a heart. East was now genuinely endplayed and had to concede a ruff and discard or play a spade away from the queen. To beat this contract West has to switch to a trump and East must play a club through immediately. If East takes both his top hearts and switches to a club South may read the position correctly and rise with the club ace, cross to table with a trump and lead the spade jack to pick up the spades. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
