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 that the pre-empt was based on an 8-card suit with nothing outside. 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.