September 2008 - 43

spades. Your correct play is to let them
win the first trick. You will notice that
this contrary to instinctive play, which is
to win tricks. After all, if the clubs run,
you will have at least 11 tricks. It is easy
to find a reason for greed.
So you duck, and West continues with
the J. Should you win or let them hold
the trick? Again, you duck. East plays the
king on this one.
While you may lose one trick by holding
up, you ensure making your contract. Do
you see why?
When East wins the K, he will
return a spade if he has one and if he
leads something else, you are home free.
Simply play on clubs until the queen falls
or someone wins it - you will then have
five clubs, one spade and four tricks in
hearts and diamonds.
Say East returns a spade. You win and
will see what West does. If he follows,
you know that there are not enough
spades out there to hurt you. If West
shows out, you learn something very
important. You learn that letting East get
in will be fatal.
Holding up gets you the information
you need. West does show out so you
play the clubs in a way that keeps East
out. For extreme safety, lead to the K
and lead the 10 from dummy and let it
ride. If it loses to the queen, West won't
have another spade to lead, so you can
take the rest. Making 10 tricks.
Very well done if you spotted the need
to hold up in spades and then to play
clubs safely. Note that West found a very
good lead. His hand turned out to be:
A832
976
AK4
 K 10 2
QJ
 K 10 9 7 4
N
8542
 Q J 10 3
W E
Q65
 J 10 9 8
S
Q654
-
65
AK
732
AJ9873
r
September 2008

Bridge Player's Survival Kit

A holding of A-K-10-6-4 is
another matter entirely. You want
your partner to lead the suit through
declarer (the player who bid your
good suit) because you will have a
finesse position against his honor
holding. And since you did not bid
the suit, how do you expect your
partner to ever think of leading them?
It is hopeless, unless . . .
When you lead the suit declarer
bid, it says to partner, "I think this is
really my (our) suit, so help me by
returning this suit if you get in the
lead."
On this deal, we expect partner
to get in the lead. Why? Well,
North-South stopped in 1NT, so they
probably have around 20 high-card
points. West is looking at 10 HCP, so

he expects his partner to have about
10.
If declarer's heart holding is
something like Q-J-5-2, he'll get
one of his honors when you lead the
suit. However, when partner later
returns the suit through declarer's
remaining hearts, you'll get your
four other hearts. So hearts is a
source of tricks for your side on this
hand.
On this occasion, you would have
been rewarded by getting all five
of your hearts. When discarding
on your hearts, East would signal
high-low in diamonds, so you would
switch to that suit when your heart
attack was over. Partner then scores
the K as well as the A to set
1NT.
r

If you want partner to lead a
specific suit on defense, you should
either bid it or lead it!

"D'you take trade-ins?"
43

PLAY BRIDGE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2008
