The winning line

This hand came up in a team game.

Barb Clinton and Joan Eaton conducted a nice auction to four hearts. Joan then took the winning line to land the contract.

Dealer: West Vul: None		Barbara
		♠	J2
		♥	9872
		♦	852
		♣	AQ42
West				East
♠	KQ543			♠	986
♥	64			♥	Q53
♦	KJ974			♦	63
♣	3			♣	K10965
		Joan
		♠	A107
		♥	AKJ10
		♦	AQ10
		♣	J87

West led the club three and Joan took time to think about the hand. Seems to her west has high cards in spade and rate to have something in diamond, yet led the club three. Even though east- west lead 4th best by agreement, the club three looked more like a singleton then fourth best.

Joan went up with the club ace and took the winning heart finesse. After two more rounds of trumps, she played spade seven towards the dummy. West won this with the spade queen and then was end-played. Tried her best by leading a diamond. However as you can see with Joan’s careful play, there is now no way to defeat the contract. She lost a spade, diamond and the club. Made ten tricks in four hearts and won 10 imps.

The other declarer, also in four hearts. At the point where west led the club three, she played club two from dummy, tried to finesse for the club king. This lost to the club king and when east returned club nine, suffered a club ruff by west. Later declarer managed to discard a diamond on the long club but the contract went down. Declarer lost a club, club ruff, a diamond and a spade.