Saturday, March 6, 2010

When a knife won't cut it, use a fork


♠ A 9 7 3
♥ K J 6 5
♦ 9 3
♣ K 7 5
♠ 6 ♠ 5 2
♥ A 10 9 2 ♥ 8 7 4
♦ A J 10 6 ♦ Q 8 7
♣ A Q J 4 ♣ 10 9 8 6 2
♠ K Q J 10 8 4
♥ Q 3
♦ K 5 4 2
♣ 3


West North East South
1♦ Pass Pass 1♠
Dbl 2♠ Pass 4♠
All Pass

West didn't want to lead from one of his aces, so punted with the ♠6. Declarer won the 8, drew a second round, then led a club towards the king.

West won the ♣A and exited with the ♣Q. What would you do?

If declarer wins the ♣K, he has no good discard. Declarer played low and ruffed it. Next, he led the ♥3 and West was caught in a Morton's Fork. If he rose with the ♥A, declarer's queen would be good, and he could discard two diamonds on the king and jack of hearts and another on the ♣K. West, therefore, played low and the ♥K won the trick. The ♣K was played next and declarer discarded the ♥Q. This meant South could claim -- he would lose two rounds of diamonds and ruff two in the dummy.

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Here's an update on the ACBL headquarters move. There's a problem with the phone company getting things set up, so the move is delayed. No new date, but it could be up to one month.

3 comments:

  1. Why is it that phone rates keep going up and quality of service keeps going down?

    I'd like to stick a fork into our local Century Link company!

    Have a super weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Classic hand Mojo - thanks!

    Love the header picture at the top of your blog - it looks like one of the shelves on my book case !

    Don't always comment, but I appreciate your diligent and interesting posts

    Ross

    ReplyDelete