IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

A strong declarer will look at all of his options before falling back on a finesse.  This hand shows the finesse to be the third best solution.

Scoring:  Matchpoints (pairs)

Hand #6
Dlr   S
Vul E/W
S QJ
H 82
D AJ87
C AJ932
S 106
H KQJ
D 1093
C Q10654
    
S 72
H A1096543
D Q6
C 87

S AK98543
H 7
D K542
C K
West North
 East
 South



1S
   Pass     2C    Pass
     2S
   Pass
     3D    Pass
     4H*
   Pass
     4S    Pass
    4NT  
   Pass
     5S    Pass
     6S
All Pass


*Splinter - diamond support with heart shortness

BIDDING:  This partnership uses a 2/1 game force system.  The bidding was natural until South's jump in hearts to show 4+ card diamond support along with heart shortness.  This also told North that South held more than five spades.  With only five spades, South would have bid his diamond suit at the two-level rather than rebidding spades.  Once South heard the spade support, he used Roman Keycard Blackwood to find two aces plus the spade queen in his partner's hand.

PLAY:  West led his top two hearts with declarer ruffing the second one.  South could discard one diamond on the ace of clubs and decided to see if the club suit divided 4-3 to provide a home for his other losing diamond.  At trick three he unblocked the club king followed by a spade to dummy.  Next he ruffed a club in his hand.  Another spade to dummy allowed him to play the ace of clubs and discard a diamond.  The 5-2 club break was bad news but he could always fall back on the diamond finesse.  A closer look soon told him the finesse was unnecessary.  He came to his hand with the king of diamonds and ran the rest of his trumps.  On the last trump, he discarded dummy's club jack and came down to the AJ of diamonds.  He next led a diamond toward dummy and when West followed with the diamond ten, declarer knew West's other card was the club queen.  So declarer went up with diamond ace and smiled when the queen dropped on his right. 

This "showup squeeze" occurs quite often.  It's surprising how many hands can be made simply by playing the rest of your trumps.  Too many players would simply take the losing diamond finesse after discovering the bad club break.

Copyright ©2008 Larry Matheny.     stats