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