You are playing Chicago bridge. This is the final deal of the night. If you can make four spades, worth 620 points and 620 dollars, you will end plus. But if you go down, you will have to write an IOU. Can you avoid that embarrassment?
West, who opened one heart, leads the diamond jack against four spades. What would be your plan?
On each deal go through a routine. Let's use A-B-C-D-E.
Analyze the opening lead. This tells you that East has the diamond queen. Also, West won't have a stronger honor-combination lead in another suit. So, East surely holds the heart king. This leaves West with a heart-holding headed by the ace-queen, from which he would not lead.
Bidding. There are 17 points missing. You may assume that East has at most five from his initial pass. So West has at least 12 points.
Count your tricks. You have three losers in hearts and one possible loser in spades. If you can play the trumps without loss, you will have 10 tricks: five spades, two diamonds, two clubs and one diamond ruff in the dummy.
Danger: That you lose one spade and three hearts.
Entries: Irrelevant.
The key clue comes from the opening lead. This marks East with the diamond queen and heart king. So West must have everything else including the spade queen After winning the first trick, cash your spade ace, then run the spade jack through West. When it wins, as you were confident it would, draw the last trump and claim.
West, who opened one heart, leads the diamond jack against four spades. What would be your plan?
On each deal go through a routine. Let's use A-B-C-D-E.
Analyze the opening lead. This tells you that East has the diamond queen. Also, West won't have a stronger honor-combination lead in another suit. So, East surely holds the heart king. This leaves West with a heart-holding headed by the ace-queen, from which he would not lead.
Bidding. There are 17 points missing. You may assume that East has at most five from his initial pass. So West has at least 12 points.
Count your tricks. You have three losers in hearts and one possible loser in spades. If you can play the trumps without loss, you will have 10 tricks: five spades, two diamonds, two clubs and one diamond ruff in the dummy.
Danger: That you lose one spade and three hearts.
Entries: Irrelevant.
The key clue comes from the opening lead. This marks East with the diamond queen and heart king. So West must have everything else including the spade queen After winning the first trick, cash your spade ace, then run the spade jack through West. When it wins, as you were confident it would, draw the last trump and claim.