Premier League 6S

E-W Game
Dealer South

• 10632
• Q74
• J7
• 10873

• AJ754
• J6
• 843
• A62

N

W

E

S

• KQ9
• A1098
• AK1095
• K

• 8
• K532
• Q62
• QJ954

West

North

East

South

-

-

-

Pass

Pass

Pass

1

Pass

1

Pass

2

Pass

3

Pass

3

Pass

4

Pass

4NT^RKCB

Pass

5^{2 'aces'}

Pass

5NT^{grand try}

Pass

6

All pass

Two expert declarers in the Premier League reached 6 on this hand, but both went off on the lead of 4. South's K won the first trick, and they switched to Q.

First, some thoughts on the opening lead. The auction has been informative: declarer has five spades, three diamonds, the ace of clubs, the ace or king of spades, probably with the jack, and not much more. Dummy has five diamonds to the ace and king, four hearts to the ace, three spades to the ace or king and the queen, and a club. If that's all they've got, a heart lead will beat the contract by setting up a heart trick before declarer concedes a diamond, so long as declarer has two or three hearts. A trump or club lead may beat it too (the latter depends on who's got the spade ten), but only if declarer's got three clubs.

Making dummy a bit stronger: the contract is almost always making if dummy's got K (unless diamonds are 4-1). But if instead dummy's got K or declarer has Q, a heart still succeeds. And the heart usually wins if dummy's got Q with the king over it.

So, unless diamonds are 4-1, the heart lead is indicated from most holdings, and not much can be deduced from it.

Now how do you play?

Click here to show (or hide) the answer

The lead doesn't tell us much about who's got the queen of hearts, and nor I think does the choice of spot card, but perhaps restricted choice favours North having it, and it's more convenient to play that way anyway. The plan is take a heart finesse and discard a diamond on a heart. For our twelfth trick, we can either ruff the diamonds good, which needs both pointed suits to break (we need the third round of spades to be a late entry to dummy), or simply ruff a club, which needs only the spades to break. The important thing in the latter line is not to make the expert-looking unblock of the jack of hearts at trick one. We win the king of clubs, play the king and queen of spades overtaking, and lead the jack of hearts. North can't afford to cover it, so we will still be in hand to ruff a club, ruff a heart back to hand, draw the last trump, and claim.

This plan will gives us some chance when spades are 4-1 too: if South discards on the second spade we can change tack (which is why we played high spades first). Simply draw all the trumps and lead the jack of hearts, hoping to find North with an original holding of Qxx.

At my team-mates' table, tbe world-class declarer unblocked at trick one, won the king of clubs at trick two, and played queen then nine of spades, planning to finesse in hearts then ruff the diamonds good. When South discarded on the second spade he had to concede one off.

Two hard defences in one

Love all
Dealer South

• K6
• none
• AJ53
• A865432

• AQ10983
• AJ107
• 10
• K7

N

W

E

S

• J5
• K54
• Q9762
• J109

• 742
• Q98632
• K84
• Q

West

North

East

South

Rob

Jonathan

John

Paul

-

-

-

2^Multi

2

3

Pass

Pass

3

All pass

This hand comes from the very friendly annual 'varsity alumni match. But it wasn't entirely out of amity that we got the defence wrong. Ace of clubs lead, club ruff, heart ruff, ace of diamonds, diamond to the queen, king and ruff, and now declarer had no choice but to drop the king of spades. Of course we gave suit preference with our choice of club and heart spot cards, but I failed to signal for the diamond underlead which would have put me in to give a second heart ruff. (And I could have given declarer a chance to go wrong by not covering the queen of diamonds.)

It doesn't help for North to signal at trick two for a diamond return - ace of diamonds, club ruffed to kill the discard, but declarer can simply play ace and another spade and South will be squeezed in the reds. So South has to work out when returning a heart that the best chance is to play North for ace of diamonds and a heart void. Is that possible?

At the time I thought 3NT was a lucky make, but the hand records say not. Can you see the winning defence?

Click here to show (or hide) the answer

The defence will need to take three diamonds and one in each black suit, and it has to attack diamonds at trick one before declarer can get the spades going. But ace of diamonds, diamond to the nine and king, diamond to the queen is no good. Declarer establishes a second diamond trick, discarding spades, and will make two diamonds, four hearts, two clubs and a spade. And jack of diamonds to the queen and king is the same thing. The winning defence is to lead the jack of diamonds to the queen and four. Declarer attacks clubs, but North wins and leads a diamond. South takes two diamond tricks and puts a spade through.