BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

WEST fancied his chances in 6NT on these hands, after North had pre-empted in diamonds during the auction. When North led ♦ J, South discarded a low club. Do you see any problems? a BiT of an understatement, because you only have ten tricks. on the other hand there must be an excellent chance of a nice squeeze play, as soon as you have discovered the remainder of North’s distribution.

You cash ♠ KQ, ♥ aQ and ♣ a, and North follows low on each of these, so you know North’s distribution outside of diamonds. more importantly, you now know, by simple deduction, precisely what is south’s hand, and you can set about squeezing him.

Cross to dummy with ♣ K, and you can now be sure that south is left with doubletons in each of his suits. The next stage is quite interesting, so i’ll continue with the 6- card ending tomorrow.