Florida expert Richard Pavlicek does a great deal for the online bridge community. His terrific website, rpbridge.net, offers many resources, including a card combination analyzer, a hand evaluator, articles on the game and even play contests. He also runs regular team games on BridgeBaseOnline, involving a high standard of play. The games are, of course, free to kibitz.
Today’s deal is from one such game. Pavlicek was South, declaring three no-trump on the heart queen lead. This was a strange choice after West’s lead-directing double and South’s natural heart call, especially since West’s heart holding was evidently not solid. No doubt Pavlicek was inclined to infer the 6-0 club division. He took the first trick and led the diamond king. While he would have preferred to tackle the suit from dummy, entries were not plentiful.
West took the diamond trick with the ace and persevered with the heart jack, again taken by declarer. Pavlicek had eight tricks now, nine if the diamonds came in. Failing that, he might be able to establish the spades, but only if he could keep West, the hand with long hearts, off lead. He therefore advanced the spade 10 and ran it when West followed low, losing the lead to the safe hand. If East had another heart to play, the suit would be splitting 4-3. As it was, East played a diamond. Pavlicek took that with the queen, crossed in clubs and cashed the spades. When that suit broke, he had nine tricks.