Here are two interesting hands from last Thursday’s WCBU pairs. How did you go when you played them?

 
On this hand both declarer and defender have a chance to go wrong. The contract was 3NT played by West and the lead was 4D giving declarer a 10th trick. At first glance KC is the only entry to dummy, but careful play allows declarer to reach dummy twice more. In dummy for the first time with KC, declarer leads QH for a finesse and must play the JH under the QH so that, if North wins KH, then 10H is an entry to dummy. Of course, if North is alert, they will decline to play KH until declarer tries a second finesse with 10H, seemingly cutting declarer off from dummy.

Now, what card did declarer play towards KC. If it was 6C then there is no way back to dummy. However, a far-sighted declarer would have spotted the problem early, led 8C towards KC and used 6C to lead towards 7C on the fourth round of the suit  in order to play the winning heart.

Interestingly, the hand was played 13 times in 3NT. Twice declarer made 12 tricks; 7 times 11 tricks, each time after 4D lead; 4 times 10 tricks on 2S lead (Andrew Robson reckons 4th highest from 4 cards to the J is the worst lead against NT but still). Sadly, the only pair to bid 6NT received the 2S lead and went one down.

 
On this hand, with an 8 spade trump suit missing Q, J and 10, a loss of one spade is inevitable. Play of AS in the hopes that the missing spades are split 3-2 draws the JS from South. To guard against North having the remaining 3 trumps, declarer must next go to dummy with AD and then lead 9S, planning to finesse if North play low.