Hand of the Week #112 (Solution) ♥

Looking at possible (and definite!) losers in this 4♠ contract, we have: 1 spade, 2 hearts, 1 diamond, and no clubs. The spade and diamond loser look pretty inevitable, so it looks like we need to reduce our heart losers by at least one to make this game. It might seem like we only have one chance in hearts which is to finesse the ♥Q, hoping for South to hold the ♥K – a 50% chance. However, this would ignore the presence of the ♥9 in the dummy. This innocent looking ♥9 is a threat against the missing ♥J10 so we have an extra chance in the heart suit which will increase our odds of success (avoiding 1 loser) to ~62.5%.

So, win the ♣A on the dummy and drive out the ♠A (no need to delay drawing the trumps). When South wins the ♠A they do best to continue clubs forcing us to ruff in hand, if South were to switch to hearts at this stage it would help us greatly so I am going to assume they don’t do that! So ruff the club continuation in hand and draw the remaining trumps, having played 3 rounds of trumps in total. Now comes the maximisation of chances in the heart suit (the clever bit if you like!). We should play a heart from hand and wait to see what South plays. If South plays low (as they should) then we should insert the ♥9 from the table. On this layout, that forces North to win the ♥K and we have set up our ♥Q as a trick, so we have avoided the heart loser we needed to! We lose just 3 tricks this way, 1 spade, 1 heart and 1 diamond for game made.

If South had instead played their ♥10 or ♥J when we played low from hand then we should cover the ♥Q which loses to North, but we then can re-finesse hearts on the next round. We would have the ♥A9 sat over South’s remaining heart honour. This extra chance in hearts will avoid a loser there whenever South has the ♥J10, which is a 25% chance. Let’s say the low heart to a ♥9 lost to North’s ♥J or ♥10, then we can always fall back on the heart finesse next. In this instance we would have the ♥AQ left on the dummy, having lost 1 heart already, and we would need South to now have the ♥K. We only lose 2 heart tricks if North has the ♥K and the ♥J or ♥10 which is ~37.5%. Low to the 9 then low to the Q is the best way to play AQ9 suits!