Source:IBPAColumn Service MAY 2020Tim Bourke**Source: wikipedia.Tim Bourke “is an Australian bridge player and writer. His joint project with Justin Corfield “the Art of Declarer Play” won the International Bridge Press Book of the Year award in 2014.IMPs Dealer East. Both Vul
Q 9 4 3
K 9 3 2
A 4
A Q 6
A K J 10 6 5 2
4
10 6
8 4 3
West
North
East
South
1
1
Pass
4
Pass
Pass
Pass
After a straightforward auction, West led the six of hearts. Declarer was a bit surprised that North had not bid three notrump; however, that could have been a bad move if South had held a minor-suit king instead of the ace of spades.
Declarer’s first step was to cover the six of hearts with dummy’s nine, to prevent East from ducking and leaving West on lead to shift to a club. East won the nine of hearts with the queen and found the excellent return of the queen of diamonds, guarding against declarer having the king-ten-eight or king-ten-nine, which declarer took with dummy’s ace.
Declarer expected East to have the king of clubs; consequently, he saw that his best shot would be to be endplay East with the fourth round of hearts, forcing him to lead a club into dummy’s tenace or concede a ruff-and-discard. In order to bring this to fruition, declarer realised that he had to stop West from gaining the lead in diamonds.
As a result, he played dummy’s king of hearts at trick three and discarded his remaining diamond from hand when East played the ace on the king. East could see that returning a red suit would assist declarer and so exited with a trump. Declarer played the five of trumps from hand and won the trick with dummy’s nine in order to ruff a heart in hand with the ace of trumps.
Next, declarer led the ten of trumps to dummy’s queen and ruffed dummy’s remaining diamond with his king of trumps. All that remained was to lead the carefully preserved two of trumps to dummy’s three to reach dummy for the last time. Declarer then executed the final step of his plan: he led dummy’s fourth heart and let East win the trick by discarding a club from his hand. East had two unappetising options: he could return a club into the ace-queen or give declarer a ruffand-discard. Either way, declarer would make ten tricks.
The complete deal:
Q 9 4 3
K 9 3 2
A 4
A Q 6
