| Party Hand |
S AQ7
H AKQJ
D QJT987
C ----
S KJT98 S 65432
H 5432 H ---
D ----- D 65432
C KQJT C 432
S -----
H T9876
D AK
C A98765
7H by S lead KC. This hand illustrates the importance of Declarer thinking of a plan before playing to trick 1. The problem is diamonds are blocked in South's hand, with no entry to dummy except in trumps. It looks easy to cash AD, KD then go over to dummy's top trumps. When things look easy, think whether there could be a snag. You have a void in both hands, so the defenders could also have a void, and trumps could break 4 - 0. If you can shorten South's trumps, the AK D can be discarded on dummy's trumps, leaving dummy's diamonds good. To do this you need to ruff 2 spades, before ending in dummy. Most players threw away a spade on the first lead and it was then too late. Others tried to cash AD and it was ruffed. The winning line is difficult to find at the table, but is:-
trick 1 discard D7 and win with AC
2 cross to HA
3 ruff S7
4 cross to HK
5 ruff SQ
6 cross to HQ
7 cash HJ, discarding DA. trumps are now gone.
8 cash SA discarding DK
9 Dummy's diamonds are now high, so you can claim the rest
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