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This is a hand that John played on Tuesday. It is a routine hand where you can make 11 or 12 tricks. The defence start with ♥A K. You trump the ♥K. Now stop and count your tricks. You have 6 spades, 3 diamonds and 2 clubs off the top. How can you make the 12th trick?
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Thinking ahead, one way to make the extra trick is to take the club finesse but if West has the ♣Q that will fail. We are taught to look for alternative lines of play and a 100% option is better than a 50% finesse. Plan to draw trumps and play the ♦ A K Q. We have 8 diamonds between the two hands so if the defenders diamonds break 3-2 (which will be the case about 68% of the time) we can take all 5 diamond tricks. But what if they break 4-1 (which will happen about 25% of the time)? Always think what might go wrong.
When East shows out of diamonds on the second round your new plan springs into action. Play ♦Q and then trump the fourth diamond. That draws West's last diamond. Now you can enter dummy with the ♣A and take the last, set-up, diamond throwing a losing club. Now take the ♣K for the 12th trick.
There - no need to take the club finesse at all. If you take the ♣ A and K too early you wont have the communication between the two hands to do all this.
East could have made life more difficult by switching to a club at trick two. You can try ♣J but the queen covers it so you must take the king. Providing you save the ♣A in the dummy your plan will still work.
If the diamonds had broken 5-0 which, after East jumps to 4♥, is not impossible then it does come down to the club finesse for the 12th trick. And as it fails you would only make 11 tricks.
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