Mary Hemingway wrote, "Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything."
At the bridge table, though, it pays to worry about possible unfriendly trump splits and losing finesses. But if you cannot handle bad breaks, approach the play optimistically and assume everything will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
In this deal, imagine that you reach seven no-trump. How would you plan the play after West leads the club 10 to your ace?
South opened three no-trump, showing a balanced hand (4-4-3-2 or 4-3-3-3) with 25-27 high-card points. North should have raised to six no-trump, but miscounted his points and jumped to seven no-trump.
You need to pick up the heart suit, so assume East has the king. But you will need to take heart finesses, which require dummy entries. If spades are splitting 4-1, you will get only two dummy entries and will need East to have at most three hearts. But if spades are 3-2, you can afford for East to have four or five hearts because you can engineer three dummy entries.
Cash the spade queen, then lead the spade six to dummy's king. You are on the board, so take a heart finesse - whew! Since spades were 3-2, overtake the spade jack with dummy's ace and take a second heart finesse. Now lead the carefully conserved spade three to dummy's four and take another heart finesse, landing your lucky grand slam.
At the bridge table, though, it pays to worry about possible unfriendly trump splits and losing finesses. But if you cannot handle bad breaks, approach the play optimistically and assume everything will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
In this deal, imagine that you reach seven no-trump. How would you plan the play after West leads the club 10 to your ace?
South opened three no-trump, showing a balanced hand (4-4-3-2 or 4-3-3-3) with 25-27 high-card points. North should have raised to six no-trump, but miscounted his points and jumped to seven no-trump.
You need to pick up the heart suit, so assume East has the king. But you will need to take heart finesses, which require dummy entries. If spades are splitting 4-1, you will get only two dummy entries and will need East to have at most three hearts. But if spades are 3-2, you can afford for East to have four or five hearts because you can engineer three dummy entries.
Cash the spade queen, then lead the spade six to dummy's king. You are on the board, so take a heart finesse - whew! Since spades were 3-2, overtake the spade jack with dummy's ace and take a second heart finesse. Now lead the carefully conserved spade three to dummy's four and take another heart finesse, landing your lucky grand slam.