Important Overtricks 07-22

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

In a pairs event overtricks are very important. Here is a hand where the auction gave declarer the information he needed to take the maximum number of tricks.

Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)

Hand #22
Dlr	N
Vul	N/S

	10874
	Q105
	A863
	98

	Q
	AK8743
	KJ5
	Q52

	J6
	J62
	9742
	J1074

	AK9532
	9
	Q10
	AK63

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	1
2	2	Pass	3
Pass	3	Pass	4
All Pass

BIDDING: After North's raise, South made a help-suit game try in clubs. West had a nice hand but after a few moments he realized his partner must be broke so he passed with a sigh. North bid 3

which denied help in clubs but showed a good raise with a diamond honor. This was enough to encourage South to bid game.

PLAY: West led the ace of hearts but after spotting the heart queen in dummy, shifted to the queen of spades. Declarer saw he could ruff his two low clubs in dummy so his only other possible loser was a diamond. Reflecting on the auction, declarer knew it was almost certain West held the diamond king and the heart king so a squeeze was possible to develop a 12th trick. It was a simple matter to draw trumps and ruff the two small clubs. He then played the rest of the trumps and West was doomed. On the last trump West had to discard from

K and

KJ while behind him dummy held

Q and

A8. His only hope was to discard a diamond and hope his partner held the queen but it wasn't to be. Declarer discarded his now worthless heart queen and took the last two diamond tricks.

Surprisingly, in a local game only five of twelve N-S pairs found this simple squeeze. Declarer merely needed to visualize the red suit holding of West and play all of his trumps.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.