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Deal of the Week (Jun 06, 2008) Click here for Archives
Problem:
The Auction:
West   North   East   South
           1        4♣     pass
pass    dbl       pass    4
all pass

Bob Hamman declared this deal in the recent US team trials. West led the ♣K, and switched to the Q, covered by the king and ruffed by East. Plan the play after a spade is returned (when you tackle trumps, you will discover that they split 2-2).
Solution:
The winning play is not a complicated one, but nonetheless is quite elegant. After winning the spade return, Hamman drew trump in two rounds (since East had already used a trump to ruff a diamond, only three trumps remained,and playing trumps for no loser was not an issue). He then ruffed his remaining club in dummy, cashed his other spade honor, and exited with a spade, letting the opponents choose who is endplayed.

If East wins this trick, he will have to concede a ruff-and-discard. If West wins the trick, he will have the option of playing into the diamond tenace, or to play the thirteenth spade and concede a ruff-and-discard.

 K87
 AJ52
 AK652
 3
 Q1095 Deal  J43
 Q6  87
 QJ984  -
 KQ  AJ987652
 A62
 K10943
 1073
 104

If West had shifted to a low diamond at trick two instead of the queen, Hamman would have needed to make the inspired play of running this to the ten, in order to make the contract.

Analysis:
Bridge Baron's double dummy analysis points out that the contract can be defeated on an initial diamond lead, followed by a club underlead from the ace and another diamond through.

Bridge Baron's Line of Play
Bridge Baron did well on this deal, finding the winning line of play on this deal quite nonchalantly.
Par Contract Analysis:
Assuming that nobody is vulnerable, 5♣X by East-West is is the par contract, as -300 is a good save against 420 for North-South in 4.

Bridge Baron deal No : N0149-49722-62439-18596-29183-65424

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