Source: Blocking and Unblocking by Terence Reese & Roger Trézel
“Never play a card automatically. Always look ahead and consider what is likely to happen. This salutary advice will help you to make the right play on a hand such as the following”:
|
J 9 8 2
J 9 4
A 9 8
6 4 3 |
|
Q 10 6
K 7 6 3 2
J 7 3
7 5 |
|
K 7 5
A 8 5
Q 6 4 2
K 9 8 |
|
A 4 3
Q 10
K 10 5
A Q J 10 2 |
You are South, playing in 3NT. West leads the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
3 and East plays the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
A. Beware lest, with less than your full attention on the game, you drop
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
10.
It is easy to foresee the consequence. Este will return
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
8, and when your
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
Q appears, West maturally hold off, hoping that his partner will have an entry card and a third heart to lead.
In with the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
Q, you lead a diamond to the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/d.gif)
A and take a club finesse, which holds; but you have no second entry to the table, and when the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/c.gif)
A fails to drop the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/c.gif)
K there will be no play for the contract.
All you need to do on this hand is unblock the hearts by dropping the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
Q under the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
A. If West, as before, holds off the next heart you can overtake the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
10 with the
![](http://youth.worldbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/h.gif)
J and finesse twice in clubs.
Alternatively, West may take the K and look for tricks in another suit, but you can withstand attack in either spades or diamonds and meanwhile the hearts have not been established.
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