Intra finesse
The Hindu
When today’s deal was played in a recent online tournament, many North-South pairs reached four he
When today’s deal was played in a recent online tournament, many North-South pairs reached four hearts. All of them failed except one.
West led the two of spades against our hero, showing an odd number of cards in the suit. East took his queen and ace before shifting to a club to dummy’s ace. South needed to hold the trump suit to one loser. The normal way to do that was to hope for a 3-2 split with East holding the king. The lead had shown an odd number of spades in the West hand and South decided to find out whether it was three or five. He cashed dummy’s king of spades. East followed suit, meaning that West started with only three spades. This made West a slight favorite to hold the heart length.
South started trumps by leading a low one from dummy without cashing the ace first. East played the eight and South paused for thought. If, in fact, West had started with three hearts to East’s two, it would have been a huge play for East to play low with king doubleton. South decided that East would not do that, so he played the nine from his hand, losing to West’s 10. South won the diamond shift in hand with the king and led the queen of hearts. West played low and so did dummy. The fall of the jack from East put a smile on South’s face and a game bonus in his pocket. Well done!