Hand of the Week #58 (Solution) ♠

The lead of the ♠10, combined with the opponent’s bidding, is quite revealing about the spade suit. With ♠KQ109xx or something similar, East would have led the ♠K so they must be missing either the ♠K or ♠Q, ie West has a spade honour. We also know that the spades are splitting 6-2 with East having 6 (from their opening bid). So this means that East has either ♠K109xxx or ♠Q109xx and West has either ♠Kx or ♠Qx. This is important to realise because we want to duck spades enough times to restrict communications in the defence, and it looks like ducking once will do the trick (no pun intended!). Looking at our top tricks in 3NT we have 1 spade, 3 hearts, 1 diamond and no clubs. We have chances for extra tricks in potentially all 4 suits, but really we want to look at our length suits which are clubs and hearts. Hearts might yield 2 extra tricks (5 in total) if the missing hearts are splitting 3-3, but this will only happen ~36% of the time, and is probably less likely with a pre-emptive bid from one of our opponents. Clubs will always give us 4 extra tricks even if we have to lose to both the missing ♣A and ♣Q, and we might get 5 extra tricks in clubs if the ♣Q proves not to be a loser. Therefore, it is the clubs we should go after as this represents a pretty safe bet. We are going to have to be a bit careful with our entries to dummy though as this is where the club length is and we are not particularly entry rich there!

So, the ♠10 lead goes to West’s ♠Q (West cannot duck the ♠10 as their partner’s lead denies the ♠J so North is marked with this card) and we should duck. West will no doubt continue their last spade, but because we know it is their last spade from the above analysis we can win the ♠A, discarding a small diamond from table, and set about the clubs. We want to finesse for the missing ♣Q so we want to play clubs from the dummy. To do this we are going to have to use one of our 2 entries (♥K and ♦A) but this is okay as we only need one further entry to cash the clubs later. So, cross to the ♥K (much safer than opening the diamond suit for the opponents) and play a club off table. West hops up with the ♣A (no choice) but importantly has no spades to play to their partner. It is best to throw your ♣J underneath West’s ♣A to unblock the club suit. West now does best to exit a heart to your hand as a diamond will give us a free finesse (and an extra trick). So win a heart in hand and cash the ♣K. If the clubs are 2-2 the ♣Q will now fall and you will have a lot of tricks, as it happens East is able to hang onto their pesky ♣Q so the clubs are not yet masters. We need to clear this ♣Q to set up our clubs, but first we should test to see if the hearts are breaking. Cash your last top heart honour in hand throwing a diamond from dummy, and see that the hearts are 4-2 with West covering this suit – no luck there either! Fortunately because of our careful duck at trick one, we still have ♠Jx in hand, and it is East who will be gaining the lead when we play clubs, so they cannot cash their spades from that seat. So far the opponents have won the ♠Q and the ♣A so if you give up to the ♣Q with East they can cash their ♠K if they want but that will be the end of the defence. If instead East does not cash their spade boss then we will just have to give up a trick to West’s ♦K on the last trick, so either way the defence can only get 4 tricks. So play your last small club from hand which loses to East and smile at them as they cannot stop you from making your 9 tricks now (clubs are now masters on dummy with the ♦A as an entry).

The key to this hand is using the information the opponents have given you against them. The spade lead is dangerous as we only really have one stopper there, but our ♠J turns out to be key as this stops East from being able to cash the spade suit later. This hand could be much easier if the clubs were 2-2, or the ♣Q was singleton, or even if the hearts were breaking 3-3, so there are a lot of chances in this 3NT.