To continue this month’s trend, we kick off the week with a play problem.
You are South, declaring three no-trump with 28 high-card points. This should be easy, right? All I will say is that you should never take your eye off the ball at this game.
You receive the spade five lead and play low from dummy. The lead trots around to the 10 and your king. You start with only seven top tricks and will naturally go after clubs for more. One possibility is to cash the club ace and then lead toward the queen. It seems more flexible to cross over to the diamond queen and lead a club to the two, queen and eight. So far, so good. How should you continue?
The objective is still to bring in your clubs, but if you were to lay down the club ace now, you might let West in with the club jack to continue spades, endangering your contract against a 5-3 break, if you misguess what to play from dummy at the second turn. How would you know whether to put up the spade queen or not? The spade ace could just as easily be in either hand. A misguess could spell disaster.
To spare yourself this headache, you should strive to lose the lead to East, who is the safe hand because he cannot continue spades effectively. So, go back to dummy with the heart ace and play another club. If East produces the king, you can duck. If he follows with the nine, win with the ace and lead another club. This way, you stop West from getting in with the doubleton jack of clubs to push a spade through.