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Deal of the Week (Jan 25, 2008) Click here for Archives
Problem:

The Auction:
West  North  East  South
3      dbl      pass  3
all pass

You are South on this week's deal, declaring 3. West leads the K, and leads a diamond to his partner's ace. The East player now plays a third diamond, giving you a ruff and discard. How will you proceed? (When you play trumps, you will find out that West has the singleton Q)

Solution:
There is more than one successful approach on this deal; we present one solution that is quite elegant. The defense cashes two diamonds, and plays a third diamond; you discard a club from hand and ruff in dummy. When you cash the A, West follows with the Q. West has shown up with the KQJ of diamonds and the Q, so he is unlikely to have either of the black suit kings.

Your next move is to establish the club suit. You should play the ♣Q from dummy, to ensure that you lose the lead to East, who cannot play spades safely. East wins the king and plays back a club which you win with the ♣A. You ruff a club with the 8, establishing the suit. The stage is now set for the big play. You cash the king and ten of hearts, and play the carefully preserved 3 to endplay East, who will be forced to play a spade away from his king.

 Q53
 AJ4
 83
 AQ854
 987 Deal  KJ104
 Q  9765
 KQJ1076  A92
 J106  K9
 A62
 K10832
 54
 732

When this deal was played, tricks one through four were identical to the recommended play. At trick five, the declarer cashed the J, but failed to underplay the three. He then played a low club from the table; East naturally went up with the king and played a club to dummy's queen. When the ♣A was played next, East could have defeated the contract by ruffing with the 9. When East ruffed with the 7, declarer recovered from his earlier lapse by overruffing with the 10, and exiting with the 8 to East's nine. East had to play a spade away from the king; apart from securing an extra spade trick, the endplay enabled declarer to reach dummy via the ♠Q, and cash the established clubs.

Analysis:
Bridge Baron's double dummy solver points out that West could defeat the contract by switching to a spade at trick two. Once a second diamond was played, ten tricks are available. The double dummy analysis confirms that the line of play described in the above section guarantees nine tricks. The analysis also points out some more lines of play that lead to success; feel free to explore them for yourself.
Par Contract Analysis:
The par contract on this deal is 4 by East-West.

Bridge Baron deal No : N0776-42908-33307-90134-60462-26521

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