Hand 5 from Week 20

Submitted by Vil Gravis on Thu, 19/05/2016 - 22:29

You are declarer in 3NT and the lead is the SEVEN OF HEARTS. Don't ask me how the bidding went for you to end up in 3NT but believe me it WAS the best contract as it happens. How will you plan your play? This is the set up:

T7
AJ65
JT9843
5

AQ8432
K
KQ76
AQ

This should be a piece of cake, but you should try and make as many tricks as you can. When you're playing a match point game every overtrick makes a difference to your ultimate score.

You should be reasonably sure that West has the queen of hearts, but you cannot finesse as you have only one heart which is the king and that will win the first trick. You have a wonderful diamond suit between you and dummy, so you should immediately play on that so you can enjoy the diamond tricks after knocking out the ace. Win the king of hearts in hand and play the king of diamonds. When either opponent wins the ace, you will be able to decide what to do next. If WEST wins the ace, West will be leading right into the AJ of hearts so you will be able to take that finesse by putting in the jack. If West leads a spade, that will run round to your AQ and you will not need to finesse in that suit, same if West leads a club. West may be smart enough not to lead any of the suits that give you these free finesses.

Say West returns another diamond. It is now over to you to make the most tricks. Don't just run off your diamond tricks, taking all your available tricks is not always a good idea if you have other things you want to do. Do you see that the diamonds in dummy will allow you access to dummy for other purposes? You will need to be in dummy if you want to take dummy's ace of hearts, or if you want to lead either black suit for a finesse to your queen. So, win the second diamond with the queen and then lead a diamond to dummy, but DO NOT then take any more diamonds. Use that entry to dummy to try the spade finesse. Even if it loses, nothing West plays can harm you. If the spade finesse wins, lead another diamond to dummy, Cash the ace of hearts in dummy and the last two diamonds and then take the club finesse, leading to the queen. As long as you can see that even if these finesses lose you are in no danger, you can try them. Check the hand out on the results site and see how many declarers made the most possible tricks.