Hand
of the Fortnight
Number
4
Theme:
Keeping control when playing No
Trumps
You are sitting East and are using Strong No Trumps in your bidding system.
The bidding goes
South leads HK. Dummy goes down and you see
West
(Dummy)
East (You/Declarer)
S: Q8 S: AK7
H: 6 4 2 H: A 7 5
D: KJ43 D: A T6
C: AJ97 C: QT84
Main
Points:
1)
Assume South has 5
Hearts. Do a quick
sum! How many Hearts would
North have?
13 – ( 5 + 3 + 3 ) = 2
If South
leads Hearts again on the 2nd trick, take this trick.
2) Which suit do you finesse first? Definitely the Clubs. If South did have only 4 Hearts,
you are now in danger of losing 1 Club + 3 Heart tricks immediately if the finesse fails.
If this
happens, can you now afford another finesse? No!
By finessing Clubs first, if the finesse fails and Hearts were 4 – 3, you can take
3 Spade + 1 Heart + 2 Diamond + 3 Club tricks to make your contract.
3) N.B. If Hearts were 5 – 2, finesse South for the DQ also.
Note
for Beginners:
What happens if you blast away with all your top cards? Take a look at your Spades.
You have 5 meaning the opponents have 8 (and are probably 4-4 or 5-3).
You’ve just set up 2 or 3
Spade tricks that the opponents should not have been able to
take.
Keep the Spades for
protection until later.
Extra
Point:
One of the beauties of
playing No Trump contracts is that usually you have more time to set
up winners. There is no risk of an opponent trumping in as you try to set up
later tricks.
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