NEW CANADIAN BRIDGE

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

West continued with jack of spades as East ruffed and cashed the ace of diamonds. Declarer won the club shift, led a heart to the king and drew trump with a finesse. South discarded a club and a diamond from the dummy on the spade winners to emerge with ten tricks.

East had erred by cashing the ace of diamonds, allowing the game to come home. The jack of spades was a suit preference asking for a diamond return so East should switch to a fourth best diamond. West wins the king but continues with a third spade to defeat the game.

South could ruff with dummy's king of hearts and continue with a trump to the jack but West's discard will doom the contract.

An interesting question is whether East should cover the six of hearts, in this scenario, to prevent South from possibly running this card having sniffed out the 4-0 heart break. I believe he should play the ten, locking declarer in hand, where there is no dummy entry to permit declarer to pick up the trump suit.

The layout was certainly unfavorable with hearts dividing 4-0, East holding a singleton spade and West the club queen.

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