I will admit, the first time I tried playing this hand out (on paper) I got the exact same result as you laid out in your commentary. I managed to lock myself out of dummy and couldn’t safely get back to my long heart suit to get rid of the bad clubs.
So it was back to the drawing board…
After looking the hand over again, I then tried the following sequence:
Take the heart lead with the queen and then in effect sacrifice the trump queen in dummy by laying down the ace and king of trumps immediately. Yes, this gives up a trick to the possessor of the spade ten, West in this layout, and declarer is also not trapped in dummy either.
What seemed to work at that point was to lay done one more spade, forcing West to play the final outstanding trump. East-West can take one diamond now but as far as I can tell, that’s it. My opponents won’t win any more diamonds, they’re out of trump, and I have two entries back to the dummy’s long hearts for disposing of my bad clubs.
As declarer, I would have no way of knowing that trump will break 2-3, which seemes necessary for me to make my bid. And if they don’t break that way, I’m guessing there’s no way for me to make my bid?
So my best bet is to assume they will and play accordingly?
Btw, something had happened to Bridgeblogging’s server last week and I wasn’t able to get your daily column for the better part of week. Going to this website while having breakfast and playing the hand is a standard part of my day and I did miss it badly.
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Hi Bobby…
I will admit, the first time I tried playing this hand out (on paper) I got the exact same result as you laid out in your commentary. I managed to lock myself out of dummy and couldn’t safely get back to my long heart suit to get rid of the bad clubs.
So it was back to the drawing board…
After looking the hand over again, I then tried the following sequence:
Take the heart lead with the queen and then in effect sacrifice the trump queen in dummy by laying down the ace and king of trumps immediately. Yes, this gives up a trick to the possessor of the spade ten, West in this layout, and declarer is also not trapped in dummy either.
What seemed to work at that point was to lay done one more spade, forcing West to play the final outstanding trump. East-West can take one diamond now but as far as I can tell, that’s it. My opponents won’t win any more diamonds, they’re out of trump, and I have two entries back to the dummy’s long hearts for disposing of my bad clubs.
As declarer, I would have no way of knowing that trump will break 2-3, which seemes necessary for me to make my bid. And if they don’t break that way, I’m guessing there’s no way for me to make my bid?
So my best bet is to assume they will and play accordingly?
Btw, something had happened to Bridgeblogging’s server last week and I wasn’t able to get your daily column for the better part of week. Going to this website while having breakfast and playing the hand is a standard part of my day and I did miss it badly.
Nice to have to have you back!