THIS advice of thinking nine stpes ahead may be a stiff advice to follow but sometimes against a competent adversary it is necessary. There may be a snake in the grass which may bite a king.
You sitting East opened bidding with 1NT South doubles. This call of South is a warning signal.It is definite that he holds an opening strong 1NT High card points 16-18 and a strong plea to partner to push yp to game. West finds the (silly) bid of 2D which North thankfully doubles. This bid of 2D was probably meant as transfer to hearts. North has told Partner that he accepts a game plan and also covers diamond suit. East bid 2H just for lead direction and also confirmed heart honours but South made a jump call of 3S which spurns the offer of North of playing 3NT and South spades have now to be six carder solid suit. North with easy conscience goes upto 4S which is now passed all round. Partner leads the H4, and your Ace drops the kings from South. Immediately the South hand becomes almost visiblet to you. A 6-1-3-3 hand with DK, DJ and CJ to make up his 15HCP as South does not have HQ because West is known to have 5 carder HQ. Any defender in East position will be happy counting CA, CQ as two side suit tricks and a four carder SK safe from finesse. Almost all defenders of club level will lazily give South another ruff of hearts. This is what a competent declarer is waiting for. He also knows that SK is with you because of your opening bid and if it is four carder it is not finesseable. He will ruff heart return and with a trump coup in the back ground of his thought would cross over to dummy with diamond queen take a finesse of SQ and when it holds he repeats the finesse. At this stage he is left with 3 spades whereas you have two. One more entry to the dummy with DA and a heart ruff equalizes the trumps. Now you really found a snake in the grass. The declarer cashes DK and leads CJ supremely confident. You win with CQ and now what ever you do, you have to give North a trick with CK and the snake sitting with spade Ace Queen oveer your King seven. The snake bites your King. How to save your King fron Snake-bite? Instead of giving the declarer the much neded trumps reductions, heart ruff, lead a diamond from your hand. It takes away a vitel entry from North hand. Now the end play situation does not materialize.— Hasan Akhtar
THIS advice of thinking nine stpes ahead may be a stiff advice to follow but sometimes against a competent adversary it is necessary. There may be a snake in the grass which may bite a king.
