(1)
Transfer to hearts
This
deal is a defensive problem from the Corwen Trophy.
After the auction above South ends up in three spades. Partner leads the six of hearts to your nine and declarer's ace. Declarer, rather surprisingly, plays the four of spades to the two, ten and queen at trick two. What do you play now? Solution Declarer's
hearts must include the ace and king (with ace
queen he would have won with the queen, with ace
alone partner would have led the king). He
also appears to have the king and jack of spades
and something good and length in clubs, or else he
would have crossed to the ace of clubs to play a
spade. It seems that partner is likely to
have the diamond ace. So play back your
singleton club, then rise with the ace of spades
on the next trump lead and put partner in with a
diamond to give you a club ruff. Your king
of diamonds also cashes to take the contract one
off.
Declarer has had a blind spot, see the full deal below. Jeff Smith of Lancashire played four spades on a heart lead, he ruffed his winning heart in dummy at trick two and played the spade ten to make the contract. The full deal
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