Bidding quiz

1. You are declarer with the West hand at Seven Clubs and North leads the jack of hearts. How would you play the hand? 1. Win the heart lead with the king, draw all the missing trumps and cash the A-K of spades, hoping to catch the singleton or doubleton queen.

If the queen does not fall, lead the ten of diamonds to the ace and return the queen from dummy, planning to discard a spade if South follows low. The overall chance of success with this method of play is about 60%.

If you were to stake the outcome strictly on either a finesse in spades or in

diamonds, you would have little more than a 50% chance for the grand slam.

Note that it is far better to play South for the king of diamonds than North. This is because you can trap South’s hypothetical king regardless of how many diamonds he was dealt, while if you finessed successfully against North by overtaking the ten of diamonds with the jack, you

could not catch his king (by cashing the ace and ruffing a diamond) if he started with more than three diamonds. With eight diamonds in the opposing hands, the chance of felling the king in this way is significantly against the odds.

2. The only concern is the possibility of losing two club tricks. This can’t happen if the adverse clubs are divided 3-2, so all your thoughts should be concentrated on dealing with a 4-1 or 5-0 club division.

To assure the contract, cash the A-K of hearts and lead a low club to dummy’s jack. If South wins with the king, he must return a club or yield a ruff-and-discard. Either way, you’re sure to score the rest of the tricks.

If dummy’s jack wins the first club trick, you should next return a low club from dummy toward your remaining Q-9-3! If South shows out on the trick, you can play any club from your hand to assure the contract. North wins but is endplayed. If South follows suit on the second club lead, you are equally sure of losing no more than one club trick.

Tomorrow: The battle for trump

control.