Here’s your hand sitting North, and the
bidding:
♠ 82
♥ AKQ864
♦ 96
♣ 1097
West North
East South
P
2H 3S P
All Pass
Partner leads the JH
Here’s the dummy (on your right):
♠ Q7
♥ 53
♦ KQ432
♣ J652
You take the Queen and declarer discards the 10. What do you
return?
If you said that you would take the second heart immediately you
probably lost the hand. Partner’s lead of the jack must be either a singleton
or a doubleton because declarer discarded the 10. That is probably a false
card, to keep you from continuing hearts. If partner has a doubleton (probably), that means that declarer has three hearts and will lose all three
unless she can trump your third heart lead. There are two trumps on the board.
You want to get a third heart trick so you want to get the queen of trump off
the board.
So the answer is that you must lead a trump. Even if declarer has
the ace, she has to lead another heart to be able to trump with her queen and
you can take it and lead your last trump to get rid of the last trump on the
board, so she’s stuck with a losing heart in her hand and she goes down one.
Here is the four hand layout
North
♠ 82
♥ AKQ864
♦ 96
♣ 1097
West
East
♠
Q7
♠ KJ109653
♥
53
♥ 1092
♦
KQ432
♦ A
♣
J652
♣ AQ
South
♠ A4
♥ J4
♦ J10875
♣ K843
This is
a real unfortunate hand for east because she has only one possible entry to the
board, and that’s the heart ruff which you denied her. She can take her ace of
diamonds, then the A of clubs, then leading the club Q to south’s king and
she’s got good cards in the minor suits to get rid of her heart loser, but she
can’t get there after you take out her trump.
When
this was played in a club game, three declarers made either three or four
because defenders failed to play trump early to keep declarer from ruffing a
heart and discarding her losers on the diamonds. If north never leads a trump,
the hand easily makes four. Since partner has the ace of trump even if north
takes both hearts immediately, if he then leads a trump partner can take the
ace and lead another, getting rid of both trumps on the board.
But
north should not count on that. The safest and best play is to lead a trump
immediately before taking the second heart because if declarer has the trump
ace and takes the return, she still has to lead another heart to get rid of the
last heart on the board and north can take that trick and lead the second trump.
If he takes the second heart immediately and then leads a trump it’s too late
because the board is now void of hearts and if declarer has the trump ace (a
better than 50% chance) declarer can take the belated trump lead, play the
diamond ace and trump his third heart to get to the diamond king and queen to
rid himself of his club loser.
Played
correctly, NS should take three hearts, the spade ace and the club king, five
tricks for down one in a 3S contract.
