Comment on Hand 21 from WCBU pairs on Monday 19th April 2021

Wednesday, 21 April 2021 by Brian Paxton

 

The following hand from the WCBU Pairs game on Monday 19th April 2021 contains lessons for declarers in both directions. We were in 3H played by East and the lead was TC, while at other tables NS played in 3S or 4S.

 

 

Although we all love it when defenders present us with a free finesse, when you are playing a suit contract, you should, as in this case, play the AC on the TC lead. Players try to avoid underleading kings so the chance of the finesse succeeding is low.

When NS are playing the hand, the one thing they should avoid is playing hearts which is a frozen suit with AH sitting over QH and KH sitting over JH. The plan should be to lead diamonds towards the KQT and not finesse TD the first time. However, entries to the North hand are limited to trumps so the drawing of trumps should be planned carefully to ensure you can repeat the lead towards the remaining QT in dummy.