Friday 9 October 2009

IS IT ONLY ME WHO CAN SPOT THE DANGER?...................( Article by Johnny Supremo) Yet again, I played a simple 3NT tick for what should have been a flat board. But no....the scoresheet was littered with 3NT-1 all over the place. What on earth were others doing? Dummy had come down with a tasty: 8......K103.....Q10.....AKJ9876, opposite my flat one no trump opener:.... AQ6.....875....KJ98....Q104..... Most LHOs would have made the aggressive lead of heart queen from QJ64. It seemed obvious to me that if a put up the King to be taken by my RHO's Ace, a switch to a high spade , such as the Jack/10 with the king off-side , I would be in real doo-doo. I would be forced to try the queen ( it loses ), and with spades being continued I would be limited to making only 8 tricks ( 7C,1S ). The cover of the heart queen clearlydenies me that oh-so-valuable heart winner, which I desperately need before the defence switch their attention to spades. So what would any sane and rational declarer do? Answer: Allow the queen to hold trusting in your LHO to hold the Jack. Spades of course can not be attacked at this point. And so West has no other option except to continue hearts. This, of course, enables me by sticking in dummy's 10 of hearts to create that ninth trick I'm after...... before my spades come under attack. So always remember many contracts are won and lost by the choices we make at trick one.

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