The Ladies of the Afternoon
We had another meeting of the Tuesday afternoon bridge club. Kathie, Sally, Claire and I had a lesson. Claire was my partner this time. Everyone did something good although there was still a lot to talk about.
Claire had an interesting lead problem on Board 2. Here was her hand:
| ♠ 97 | ||||||||||||||||
| ♥ Q96542 | ||||||||||||||||
| ◊ Q2 | ||||||||||||||||
| ♣ 865
The auction had gone
|
Sally didn’t alert 2♠ so it wasn’t entirely clear what it meant as we will see later. Anyway what do you lead? Here are your choices:
a) ♠9
b) ♥5
c) ◊Q
d) ♣8 or ♣5
a) A spade seems like a good choice. Partner did overcall them and it is a safe lead if nothing else
b) a heart trying to set up your suit. But you have no high cards and dummy bid hearts. Partner can’t have more than one heart so this does seem futile.
c) A diamond is more likely to help them than your side. After all it was Kathy’s first suit. On this auction diamonds is a real suit since she would not pull out of notrump with a balanced hand
d) the unbid suit, maybe partner has something there.
Claire lead a club which was a good lead and if the contract was 3NT as it was at most tables it would have been a killer lead. Sally could still have prevailed at 2NT. Here is the whole hand.
| Kathie | ||
| ♠ Q | ||
| ♥ AKJ3 | ||
| ◊ J8743 | ||
| Claire | ♣ AJ7 | Linda |
| ♠ 97 | ♠ J86532 | |
| ♥ Q96542 | ♥ – | |
| ◊ Q2 | ◊ A96 | |
| ♣ 865 | Sally | ♣ KQ32 |
| ♠ AK104 | ||
| ♥ 1087 | ||
| ◊ K105 | ||
| ♣ 1094 |
After a club lead the best play is to duck. I win the club queen and switch to a spade. Sally leads a diamond and Claire will get in on the diamond queen. Now Claire leads another club. I will win the club king and clear the suit. When I get in on the diamond ace I can take two more club tricks. In all the defence gets three clubs and two diamonds after Claire’s fine lead. Did you find it?