IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

Most new players love to take finesses.  The intermediate players will take a brief look around for other ways to succeed and the expert players will avoid finesses unless absolutely necessary. 

Scoring:  Matchpoints (Pairs Game)

Hand #24
Dlr   N
Vul BOTH
S AK652
H J3
D KQ942
C 7
S 98
H 9876542
D J65
C K
    
S J10743
H Q
D 103
C J9653

S Q
H AK10
D A87
C AQ10842
West North
 East
 South

1S Pass
2C
   Pass     2D    Pass   
    2H   
   Pass
     3D    Pass
    6NT
All Pass



BIDDING:  South was interested in slam as soon as his partner opened the bidding.  His 2H bid was "4th suit forcing" to find out more about his partner's hand.  After North showed ten or more cards in the pointed suits, South leaped to 6NT.  A more delicate auction might have probed for the club king with a grand slam in mind.

PLAY:  With no attractive lead, West settled on the nine of hearts.  Declarer could now count twelve tricks if the diamonds behaved: 3 spades, 3 hearts, 5 diamonds, and 1 club.  Since this was a pairs event, the overtrick was a consideration.  After winning the heart lead, declarer played ace and a low diamond to dummy.  Satisfied the diamonds were running, he returned to his hand to unblock the queen of spades and the other hearts.  Next, he returned to dummy with a diamond and played the last two diamonds and dummy's top two spades.  Declarer now had a complete count on the opponents' hands: West held 2 spades, 7 hearts, 3 diamonds, and therefore only 1 club.  This made the club finesse a 5-1 proposition.  However, declarer saw that the finesse was not necessary.  Dummy's last two cards were a spade and a club while declarer held the AQ of clubs.  When East followed to the club at trick twelve, declarer knew East had saved a spade to protect against North's spade, so he  played the club ace and was rewarded when the club king dropped.

You can see that declarer needed to do no more than count to thirteen and visualize the two-card ending.  Those who took the club finesse had to be satisfied with their slam.

Copyright ©2008 Larry Matheny.     stats