Contract Bridge
1. You are declarer with the West hand at Six Clubs. North leads the queen of spades. How would you play the hand? West East
♠ A4 ♠ 3
♥ A Q ♥ 9643 ♦ A3 2 ♦ K J7 5
♣ A J9 8 7 6 ♣ KQ 10 2
2. You are declarer with the West hand at Three Notrump. North leads the six of clubs, on which South plays the jack. How would you play the hand?
West East
♠ A 6 2 ♠ K94
♥ K Q 9 ♥ J 10 6
♦ Q97 6 ♦ AJ 10 8 2
♣ A Q5 ♣ 83
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1. Win the spade with the ace, draw trump, cash the K-A of diamonds and lead a diamond toward the jack. If North follows suit (or if the queen has already fallen), the slam is in the bag.
If North does not follow suit (and the queen has not fallen), you still have the heart finesse to fall back on.
Diamonds are broached before hearts in the hope a heart finesse will prove unnecessary. Thus, if the diamonds are divided 3-3, you will make the slam regardless of which opponent has the queen. You will also succeed whenever North has four or more diamonds with or without the queen.
It would be wrong to finesse the jack of diamonds on the first or second round of the suit, as this would cost you the slam if South started with the Q-x of diamonds and North the king of hearts.
2. Assuming that North has four or more clubs, which seems likely, the contract cannot be defeated.
Win the club lead with the queen and play a heart — preferably the nine. If it holds, lead the queen of diamonds and finesse. Win or lose, you have at least nine tricks.
If the heart nine loses to South’s ace and a club is returned, duck once and win the continuation with the ace. Now try the diamond finesse. If North has the king, you’ve got 11 tricks, and even if South has the king, you’re home. He will not have a club to return if the suit was originally divided 5-3 or 6-2, so you wind up with an overtrick. If he does have a club to return, that means the suit was divided 4-4, and you finish with exactly nine tricks.
It would be wrong to attempt the diamond finesse at trick two, which would sink the contract if the finesse lost and North started with the ace of hearts and five or six clubs.