Many players holding the South cards would open one heart. The auction could proceed many different ways from there, but six no trump is certainly a reasonable contract.
The opening lead was the jack of spades and declarer could count eleven top tricks: three spades, one heart, four diamonds, and three clubs. The twelfth trick would have to come from the club suit or from a very lucky lie of the cards in the heart suit.
There is always an urge to play the top three clubs to see if the suit divides 3-3 or if the jack falls singleton or doubleton. While this approach certainly takes the pressure off quickly, it illustrates poor technique.
The hand should be played in such a way as to determine the layout of the clubs, eliminating as much guesswork as possible. To that end, it is correct to win the first spade trick in the dummy and lead a small heart. East will win the queen and should return a spade. Declarer wins this trick and plays the ace of hearts. West shows out. When the third spade winner is cashed, East shows out of that suit.
Four rounds of diamonds reveals that West started with five spades, one heart, three diamonds, and thus, four clubs. Declarer plays the ace and queen of clubs and then takes the marked finesse for the contract fulfilling tricks.
It is interesting to note that in the event that East had been the player to hold four clubs his distribution would probably have been 2-5-2-4 and he would have found himself squeezed on the run of the diamonds. In order to keep the king of hearts he would have had to discard a club.
Congratulations to the following local players who have achieved new levels of success in their bridge careers.
Richard Early of Cuyahoga Falls has passed the 7,500 master point level and is an emerald life master.
Cindy Sustin of Aurora, Delna Luce of Hudson, Audrey Schultz and Barbara Fear of Cleveland have passed the 500 master point level and are bronze life masters.
Dorothy Piovano of Medina, Janet Rice of Cleveland, and
Michael Stahr of Stow have satisfied all of the requirements and
are now life masters.
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb0416@yahoo.com