| Necessity is the Mother Of Invention |
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This is a hand from elsewhere and we will spare NS blushes by not revealing the actual bidding but mistakes happen and South finds themselves in 6D. West leads the ♥ K.
South has three or four possible losers. The ♦ Q, a Heart, and one or two Clubs. You could finesse the Diamonds to avoid the Diamond loser, ruff the Heart loser in Dumy, and/or finesse the Clubs. Which combination should you choose?
The key is to see that if you ruff the Heart loser you not only need the Diamond finesse but you need the Diamonds to split 3-3 as you can only take the finesse once. So what line will you take to make sure you can take the Diamond finesse three times?
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| Show Answer |
You need to be very cunning.
Win the ♥ A in Dummy. Now play the ♦ K and throw the ♦ J underneath it. Now you can play the ♦ 10 and if the Queen doesn't appear play the ♦ 9 and hope. If all goes well you have set up the third finesse and can play the ♦ 8, playing the ♦ 7 underneath it unless the Queen appears,
Now you can cash the ♠ Q, overtake the ♠ J with the ♠ K. Now draw the last trump with the ♦ A and cash the ♠ A.
Well you've worked hard but it's not over yet. You still need the Clubs to come in and your best chance is to play ♣ 10 (so you unblock the suit) to the ♣ Q hoping that the Club finesse works and the Clubs split 2-2. On this hand the Bridge Gods smiled and declarer made his contract. Lucky? Yes .... but a good declarer gives themselves every chance to be lucky. |
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| Hand 20: To boldy go... |
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We all erred on the side of caution on the day but here is one way the slam could have been bid.
South's 4D is a cue-bid showing first round control in Diamonds, then North's 4H shows first round control of Hearts.
Where does South go now? South's dilemma is that (s)he knows that asking for Aces will take her past the fallback position of 5C, but that isn't really a problem. North's rebid of 4C bypassing 3NT shows for certain that North started with five Spades whether you are playing four or five card Majors. This means in turn that South can safely bail out into 5S if North has only one or two Aces.
However North shows three Aces and South can confidently bid 6C with a 5-4 fit, or take a slightly higher risk and bid 6S with a 5-3 fit.
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