Watching the spots

Game all
Dealer West

• 87
• Q94
• 10765
• KJ32

• K9653
• AKJ8
• AQ2
• Q

N

W

E

S

• A10
• 732
• J84
• A10964

• QJ42
• 1065
• K93
• 875

West

North

East

South

Paul

Simon

Jon

Verity

1^Strong

Pass

1^{8-10 bal}

Pass

1NT^17-19

Pass

3NT

All pass

You find yourself in 3NT having shown 17-19 balanced or nearly so. North leads 2, fourth best in principle, you play low from dummy, South plays 5 with no apparent difficulty, and you win the queen. You try K, which gets the four on your left and the five on your right, both odd length in principle. How do you play at matchpoints? I don't claim there's a clear answer to this question.

LHO seemed to have led from KJxx, suggesting that he didn't have a four-card major. But that didn't tell me which major to play on. Unable to decide, I tried leading Q instead. RHO won this and returned a heart. I thought that was more likely to be from four low than queen to four, so I put the eight in, losing to the nine. LHO returned a diamond, to the nine and my ace. I cashed the ace of hearts, the queen falling on my left, then the jack of hearts, getting a spade from LHO, a club from dummy, and the eight of clubs from RHO. Now what?

Click here to show (or hide) the answer

Now I think the line is clear. LHO has KJx of clubs remaining, and at most two spades. Play king of spades, ace of spades, then if he's still got three clubs cash the jack of diamonds and exit with the nine of clubs.

This unusual strip-squeeze looked good, but didn't scored particularly well. Have a look at the spade spots - playing on spades would have made an easy ten tricks. In fact it's harder to find ways to make nine tricks than ten.