Birthday treat

On the Saturday of the Swiss pairs at Brighton it is Ann's birthday. Both opponents gave her a couple of presents on this hand - clues from the bidding that pointed the way to a fine piece of declarer play.

E-W vul

	♠ AQ9432 ♥ K ♦ AKJ ♣ 765
♠ 8 ♥ J962 ♦ Q852 ♣ KQJ10		♠ KJ1076 ♥ 8753 ♦ 107 ♣ 98
	♠ 5 ♥ AQ104 ♦ 9643 ♣ A432

South	West	North	East
AnnyS		RockH
p	p	1♠	p
2♣	X	3♠	p
3NT	p	p	X

My 3♠ was wrong - I should have redoubled, which must be game forcing after a 2 level response. If the opponents run they are in deep doo-dah, although perhaps my misbid turned out well as 2♣ redoubled would have gone down on normal play. West's double was not alerted but when he led the king of clubs it was clear what he meant.

Ann ducked the club, won the second round, finessed the ♦J and then cashed AK of diamonds, king of hearts and ace of spades before exiting with dummy's last club. West was able to cash two more winners in the minors but was endplayed and forced to concede the last three tricks in hearts. Well played indeed.

Unfortunately we didn't always play that well. Here are a couple of text book problems that we failed to solve at the table

N-S vul

	♠ A873 ♥ A8765 ♦ A6 ♣ Q6
♠ 54 ♥ 92 ♦ J94 ♣ AJ10984		♠ KQJ2 ♥ 43 ♦ 10832 ♣ K32
	♠ 1096 ♥ KQJ10 ♦ KQ75 ♣ 75

South declared 4 hearts after West opened 3 clubs and East raised. West led ♣A and continued with a second club to the King. Now East switched to the king of spades.

Best is to duck the King (surely West would have led a spade if he had a singleton), win the next spade and run the trumps (throwing a spade from hand) to squeeze East in the pointed suits. On the actual layout you can also succeed even after taking the first round of spades. On the run of the trumps East has to keep his diamonds and must come down to a singleton spade. Now declarer plays a spade to set up the 8 - a squeeze without the count.

♠ 1076 ♥ AKJ104 ♦ 2 ♣ 9742 ♠ A2 ♥ Q8653 ♦ 743 ♣ AQ5

I opened 1NT as South and ended in 4 hearts. West led a diamond and switched to a trump, East following. I took a mundane club finesse, hoping that if it lost West would fail to switch to a spade and that clubs would be 3-3.

A better chance is to play for an elimination. Cash the Ace of spades at trick 3 and then play another spade. On any return I can draw the last trump, cash the Ace of clubs and eliminate spades and diamonds, ending with the lead in dummy. Now play a club. This line still wins when East has the king of clubs, but also when West has a singleton or doubleton King, which was the case on the actual hand.