December Problem

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

West Pass Pass

North 2 4

East Pass All Pass

South 1 NT 2

West leads the king of clubs to your four spade contract. Plan the play.

As is our custom, the free play will go to the correct answer from the player with the fewest masterpoints. “Correct” is a relative term; just saying “I lead X,” even if X is the winning play, will probably not qualify unless nobody else finds the play. You need to furnish some justification for your play. (On the other hand, a briefly or poorly stated but correct justification will fully qualify, if I can figure it out. This is not an essay contest.) I am the sole judge of what constitutes “correct.” Send answers to JohnCTorrey@aol.com.

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November Problem

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

West Pass

North Pass

East Dbl

South 2 All Pass

Trick 1. W

Lead J

2nd 5

3rd K

4th 3

“Sometimes you get the bear; sometimes the bear gets you.” No one did anything wrong on this hand, but East-West are in great danger of giving up a doubled partscore. Their system (2NT by West would have been artificial: this is a useful approach on many hands that virtually forces a penalty pass on this one), the perfectly normal lead, the spots in diamonds and clubs, and the 5-1 spade division all work for North-South.

The greatest danger is the diamond suit, where South can take two discards after unblocking the queen. The remedy is to drive out the ace of clubs entry before South can unblock the diamond queen. This requires that West have the king of clubs, a card that he can be expected to hold on the bidding. If South has the jack and nine and “gets it right,” the defense will still fail. To give South the best chance to go wrong, East should lead the queen of clubs. (At the highest level, a low club might be the deceptive lead. You have to ask yourself what holding you want to represent, and play as if you had that holding. Here you want to represent holding the king and queen of clubs without the ten. Most experts would play the queen from that holding, I think.)

There are other issues: Might West win a heart trick and return a club to East’s non-existent jack? Cashing a spade first might prevent this.

We had only two answers this month. Al Bender and John Cobb were essentially correct (though Al’s suggestion that he would continue the ten of clubs if the queen held is scary). John Cobb wins the free play