Coming Down to the Right Size By Omar Sharif

Star-News – 19 Ene 1997 North-South vulnerable. North deals.

	Q 10 9 2 A K Q 2 A 5 3 2 9
7 5 J 10 9 8 K Q 10 7 6 4 8		J 6 4 3 6 5 4 9 J 7 5 4 2
	A K 8 7 3 J 8 A K Q 10 6 3

West	North	East	South
	1	Pass	2
3	Dbl	Pass	4
Pass	4	Pass	4NT
Pass	5	Pass	5NT
Pass	6	Pass	7
Pass	Pass	Pass

Openning Lead K

A player who preempts usually has a singleton somewhere. Should that player be on opening lead and attack a suit he did not bid, more than likely the lead is a singleton. If the player leads the suit in which the preempt was made, the singleton is probably in trumps. In the Women’s Team Olympiad, held in Rhodes, North-South for China landed in three no trump and settled for the 10 obvious tricks. The Danish North-South pair bulldozed into seven clubs on the auction shown. The contract was against the odds, and the trump break looked fatal. West led the king of diamonds, taken in dummy. Applying the principle stated in the opening paragraph, declarer ran the nine of trumps successfully. Next, declarer came to hand with the ace of spades and cashed the ace of clubs, only to learn that there was still work to do. After cashing the king of spades, declarer played off the table’s three high hearts, discarding a diamond from hand. A heart was ruffed to reduce declarer’s trump length to that of East, and dummy was reentered with a spade to the queen. With three tricks to play, declarer was poised with K Q 10 of clubs over East’s J 7 6. When a plain suit was led from dummy, it made no difference whether East ruffed high or low — declarer would score the last three tricks regardless.