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Hand of the Month - May

May Hand of the Month - from RealBridge 06/05/26

East leads  10.  You win the trick and take a second round of trumps, East playing the  9 and West the  J.  The winning  Q must be with West because East would not have lead a trump from  QT9.  You can't afford to lose any other tricks, so how will you play the hand?

The normal plan with this type of hand is to eliminate the clubs and diamonds, then throw West in with  Q.  West would have to start the spade suit or give you a ruff-and-discard in clubs.  This is quite a good plan as it works if West holds either the ♠ Q or ♠ 10.

There is a variation when you might be able to eliminate spades from West's hand, leaving him with just clubs.  Then he would have no choice but to give you a ruff-and-discard.

Let's see how it goes...

The club finesse is successful, so you play ♣ A to eliminate that suit.  When you tackle the diamond suit, East drops the singleton  Q.  After playing four rounds of diamonds, you are left with 5 cards - three spades and two trumps in both hands.  West has  Q, ♣ K and three other black cards.  What are they likely to be?

During the play, East discarded ♠ 4, ♠ 3 and ♣ 5.  It looks like he is keeping Qxx in spades. maybe QTx.  If East started with 5-5 in the black suits and 3 red cards then West can only have two spades!  It's a good chance anyway.

So play ♠ A and ♠ K, before throwing West in with  Q.  He has to lead a club and you are home and dry!

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