Bridge

When the trump nine is led against six hearts, East contributing the 10, how would you tackle the play?

If you can reach dummy, you will be able to discard two black-suit losers on the ace-king of diamonds. So, win the trump lead with the ace and lead the spade queen from hand. If West takes this, you can cross to dummy’s spade jack later and make the contract easily. Suppose West senses your problems and refuses to win with the spade king. Then your next move should be to lead the club queen! The only problem will come when East has paid attention to the previous exchange in spades and also decides to withhold his black king. If he does, what can be done?

The answer is a throw-in play in the trump suit. If West had started with 9-8 doubleton in the trump suit, he can be thrown in on the second round of trumps. He will then have to play one of the side suits, giving you access to the dummy. As West started with 9-8-3 in the trump suit, in practice you have to cash a second high trump and perform the endplay on the third round of trumps.

The clue to finding the winning play came at trick one, when East played the heart 10 at the first trick. Since there would be no particular reason to do this from the doubleton 10-3, cashing the heart king and then leading the two is strongly indicated.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Bid three clubs, primarily as a mild game-try. Your partner has shown 6-4 in clubs and hearts, and your hand is particularly well-suited to playing in clubs (or even perhaps to playing three no-trump) because of your club fillers. Let partner know that if he wants to advance, you have the right hand for him.