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Hand of the Month - October
Hand of the Month - October

October Hand of the Month - from RealBridge 07/10/26

In a competitive auction North ends up playing in 5♣ 

East starts by leading ♠ A

How do you plan the play?

You might think about ruffing 3 spades in dummy but that could leave you short of good trumps on table.
Your ♠ Q and ♥ Q could be useful cards in your hand but they may take too long to establish and are not guaranteed.  Perhaps that's a distraction.
Maybe the diamonds are a better bet?

What do you think?

 

 

The opponents have 6 diamonds, so if they break 3-3 or you can capture an honour that will work well.

You will have to play careful to ensure that you have sufficient entries to dummy.

Start by ruffing the spade.
Then play to the ♦ A.  It is vital that you unblock the diamond suit.  Some declarers rushed to draw trumps but this unblocking is a must!

Now you can lead a trump towards table.  When East plays the 9, cover it (hoping East holds the queen).

Then start establishing the diamonds by leading from dummy.  West should play low and you'll ruff.
Back to table with a trump (drawing the remaining trumps) and you can run the diamonds.

This gives you 4 discards, so you can get rid of all your hearts.  You're left with just one losing spade.

Contract made!

It was not too difficult this month but several players went wrong.  It's a good example of setting up a long suit in dummy so you can discard your losers.  You just need to be very precise with the play and your entries between the two hands.

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