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Deal of the Week (Dec 07, 2007) Click here for Archives
Problem:

The Auction:
West  North  East  South
1      dbl      pass  1♠
pass   4♠       all pass

You are West on this week's deal, defending against 4♠. You start with the three top diamond honors, South ruffing the third round. Declarer advances the ♠10. Plan your defense.

Solution:
If partner has a slow club winner, you will always defeat the contract, therefore there is no hurry to go up with the ♠A in an attempt to switch to a club. If declarer does not have a club loser, and also started with a five-card spade suit, prospects of defeating the contract are slim. However, if declarer started with a four-card spade suit, you are virtually guaranteed to defeat the contract.

You should refuse to win the first spade; partner follows suit, which is exciting news. Assuming declarer plays a second spade, you should duck this trick as well. When a third spade is played, the time to win the ♠A has arrived at last, and you should win the trick. You now play your last diamond; declarer does not have any more trumps in his hand, and is forced to ruff in dummy, thereby establishing your low trump as the setting trick. If declarer does not play a third round of spade and starts cashing winners instead, you will eventually ruff a club to score the setting trick. This technique of forcing the opposition to ruff in order to promote your long trump has been appropriately named as the forcing game.

 KQJ5
 AK
 876
 AK42
 A432 Deal  6
 876  J10542
 AKQ5  9432
 97  1065
 10987
 Q93
 J10
 QJ83

Next week's deal contains an advanced application of the forcing game. If you had not seen the forcing game before, this week's deal was intended to prepare you for next week.

Analysis:
Bridge Baron's double dummy solver confirms that starting out with three rounds of diamonds, followed by the forcing game described in the solution, is required to defeat the contract.

Bridge Baron's Line of Play
Bridge Baron made no mistakes on this deal, executing the forcing game to perfection. Bridge Baron started out with three top diamonds, and when declarer led trumps, Bridge Baron ducked the first two rounds, won the third round and forced dummy with a fourth round of diamond.
Par Contract Analysis:
The par contract on this deal is 3♠ by North-South, though it is difficult to imagine them stopping short of game.

Bridge Baron deal No : N4563-04425-47188-29841-50212-42092

You can download this deal in PPL format, and view it with Bridge Baron here :
Deal Of The Week
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