Source: Las Vegas 2019 NABC After you open 1Heart Suitin fourth seat, partner’s leap to 4Heart Suitends the bidding. West leads the Spade Suit2, fourth best, to East’s king and your ace. Now what? Plan the play.

After you open 1Heart Suitin fourth seat, partner’s leap to 4Heart Suitends the bidding. West leads the Spade Suit2, fourth best, to East’s king and your ace. Now what? Plan the play. Solution: You are staring at three losers (two spades and the Diamond SuitA), not to mention the Heart SuitK. Working with diamonds is out of the question as they will win and cash a spade trick reducing you to the heart finesse. If you take the heart finesse and it loses, down you go. But wait! What about the club finesse? If that works, you can discard a spade from dummy on the club suitA. But wait! What if the club finesse loses and the heart finesse was working all along? Both finesses are 50-50 propositions, but why guess when you can “combine”? And guess what? There is a “two-king”’ combining rule. When dealing with two suits each missing a king and a finesse for either will land you your contract, but if you take the wrong one, down you go, play the ace of the longer suit (hearts), and if the king doesn’t drop, take a finesse in the shorter suit, clubs. The chance of finding the singletonHeart SuitK coupled with the club finesse if theHeart SuitK doesn’t drop, is your best bet. Also, when you lead a heart to the ace, lead the queen. West may be someone who has covered every honor with an honor since birth.

Don’t forget – you can still enter for the 6th World Youth Open Bridge Championships being held in Croatia from 20 – 29 August.

Don’t forget to follow us @