Two Good Alternatives

Pages: Page 6 of 6

Dealer: South
Vuln: Love All
Scoring: IMPs
  1. spade4
  2. heartA 8 7 5 4
  3. diamondA Q 10 5 4
  4. clubA 4
  1. spadeK Q 10 2
  2. heart—
  3. diamondK 8 7 3
  4. club8 7 6 3 2
club diamond heart spade NT
N - 4 7 - 4
S - 4 7 - 4
E 2 - - 2 -
W 2 - - 2 -
Green square in centre
  1. spadeJ 8 7 5 3
  2. heart3 2
  3. diamondJ 2
  4. clubK Q J 10

Contract: 6heart
Declarer: South
Lead: spadeK
  1. spadeA 9 6
  2. heartK Q J 10 9 6
  3. diamond9 6
  4. club9 5
Double dummy analyser: makeable contracts
West North East South
1heart
Pass 3diamond Pass 3heart
Pass 4club Pass 4heart
Pass 4spade Pass 6heart
End
This time when you lead diamond9 West cunningly plays low. Winning with diamondJ East makes his usual club switch to dummy's ace, but because the diamonds are no worse than 4-2 you always have enough entries to dummy to ruff them out and cash the long diamond. Whatever the diamond distribution declarer has the answer with this line. Note that this is not so when diamondQ is finessed immediately.

Of course at Pairs it would be madness to play like this. Having gained a favourable lead in what appears to be a standard contract then you need to stay ahead of the game. A finesse of diamondQ is almost certain to bring in 12 or 13 tricks.
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