From the club

[Foxx]

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=s9xxxhj8xxdjxxca10&s=sakxxha10xda98ckqx]133|200|Scoring: IMP

All 'x' represent the 7 or lower[/hv]

 

The bidding was simple. East opened 2♦, natural, weak; you overcall 3NT and all pass.

 

West leads a low heart, perhaps fearful of carving up her partner's suit when he preempted at favorable vulnerability and there could be limited entries to dummy. You play low from dummy, East plays the ♥7 and you win with the ♥10 in your hand.

 

You cash the ♠A as LHO follows small and RHO drops the ♠J. Perhaps impulsively, you bang down the ♠K. LHO plays the ♠8 and RHO discards a diamond.

 

Now take the South seat and continue.

[whereagles]

hum... I don't know what to do now because after the ♠A, I'd have cashed 3 rounds of clubs and played a spade to the 9 :)

[Gerben42]

You won the first trick with the 10, the first thing you do is COUNT YOUR TRICKS.

 

2♠

2♥

1♦

3♣

--------- +

8

 

So we're one short. Possible sources for the 9th are in ♠ and in ♦, in ♥ only if we can endplay LHO.

 

After you cash ♠AK you see ♠ won't work, but what this has done is that you can almost layout the complete hand.

 

 

 

 

RHO has 6♦ so LHO has 1. LHO has 4♠. He has either 4 or 5♥. This means that his distribution is either 4414 or 4513. RHO's distribution therefore is 1264 or 1363.

 

♦ does not look promising. We have to put all eggs in one basket. So how do we get the ♥ trick?

 

Cash ♦A and 3 rounds of ♣ and exit in ♠! This will win whenever W has 4513 or 4414 with ♣J. He must bring ♥ and we can develop the ♥J.

 

 

 

[Foxx]

Gerben42 got it. There were a number of things to hope for, one being that West would be 4-5-1-3 and East 1-1-6-5, that West would have a lot of middle clubs, or......

 

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=s9xxxhj8xxdjxxca10&w=sq108xhkq9xdxcj8xx&e=sjhxxdkq10xxxc9xxx&s=sakxxha10xda98ckqx]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

I played a club to the ♣A and led the ♦J from the board. This way I wouldn't have to risk the throw-in on LHO if she had a stiff ten. RHO covered with the ♦Q and I won the ♦A as LHO dropped the ♦6. Next came the ♣K and ♣Q. When LHO failed to unblock the ♣J, the moment was right to toss her in with a spade. LHO could cash three black-suit tricks but then had to lead the ♥K to my ♥A followed by a third heart toward the ♥J. Sha-BAAM, sha-ZAAM.