Timing is Key to Playing a Hand Correctly

Here are the West and East hands and the bidding; you are sitting West:

West ª Q632 © AJT ¨  AKQ § KQ4

East ª AKT © 753 ¨ T964 § A76

South             West   North             East

                                                            P!

P                     2N*     P                     4N**

P                     6N                   All Pass

! I would open this hand with three quick tricks, even though there are only 11 High Card Points. The bidding would then go 1C-1S-1N-6N because West would figure East with a minimum of 12 HCP for the opening bid. Adding his 21 HCP to 12, that’s 33 HCP and clearly a slam opportunity.

*20-21 HCP

**Asking to bid 6N if at the top of his bid, pass if at the bottom. Since West was at the top, 21 HCP, he bid 6N. With 32 HCP, slam should be tried; with 31, it’s a longshot without a long running suit.

Opening Lead 8§

You’ve got 10 tricks, AKQ of spades and diamonds and clubs and the ace of hearts. Where do you get the other two? If the jack of spades is a doubleton and it drops on the AK, you’ve got another spade because that makes the 10 good, or if spades split 3-3 you’ve got your 4^th spade trick. That’s two chances for your 11^th trick. If you lead out the AKQ of diamonds and the jack falls, that’s another. Considering the odds, let’s say that half of those work. You still need another trick. The only place to get it is to finesse twice in hearts. The question is, what do you do first?

The opening lead gives you the answer right off the bat. You must try the heart finesse first. You know that your Left Hand Opponent (LHO) does not have both the king and the queen of hearts. If he did he would have led the heart king, top of connecting honors. So Right Hand Opponent (RHO) is finessible, either holding both of the heart honors or one. Because of the opening lead, you know he has at least one of them. The reason why you must try the finesse first is that let’s say you lead out the AKQ of diamonds and the jack doesn’t fall. That means that when you take the heart finesse and it loses, the jack of diamonds will be another winner and if the winner of the finesse has that card, you are down. When you take the finesse first and lose it, you don’t have a sure loser to lose because you still have control of the diamonds.

After you take the heart finesse and it loses to North, you may then confidently lead out your AKQ of diamonds to see if the jack falls, which it didn’t. Then go to the board and take your AK of spades. If the jack doesn’t fall, take the heart finesse to your hand, which works because, as you knew, the honors were split, and hope that spades break evenly by leading the queen. As it was, the jack was a doubleton and when it fell, the spade 10 was good so your queen of spades was your 12^th trick, 3 diamonds, 4 spades, 3 clubs and 2 hearts.

This hand was played eight times in a club game consisting of experienced players, mostly Life Masters, and everyone but one person played it wrong. Interestingly, only four found the slam. The other four were in 3N, making 5. Two of those in slam were down one; one was down two and one made it. Here’s the four hand layout:

	North ª 9754 © K2 ¨ J732 § 853
West ª Q632 © AJT ¨  AKQ § KQ4		East ª AKT © 753 ¨ T964 § A76
	South ª J8 © Q9864 ¨ 85 § JT92