By Joel Hoersch
Editor, District 22 Forum
Í A32
Ì A107
Ë J532
Ê AJ5
Í K1098754 Í Q6
Ì 86 Ì 42
Ë Q7 Ë K984
Ê 106 Ê Q9832
Í J
Ì KQJ953
Ë A106
Ê K74
According to Deep Finesse, if North plays a heart contract on the hand above, he can take 12 tricks. If South declares the heart contract, however, the limit against best defense is 11 tricks.
The hand was given to me by Bill Allen of La Mesa, who is a very tenacious bridge player. He believes that the best way to learn better bridge is to spend as much time analyzing interesting problems as you can spare ... and I agree. When he ran into this layout in a club game, he devoted a couple of hours afterward looking at various possibilities, then sent it along to me for my views. I was able to give him a slight nudge that led him to look at the hand in a new light that allowed the answer to fall into place. (Actually, Bill did better than I did on this hand, since my first cursory analysis was too shallow to cover the final solution, which is rather elegant.)
The “nudge” I gave Bill was to say that when a bridge hand makes a different number of tricks from one side of the table than from the other, the reason almost always turns on the opening lead. So your assignment this month is to analyze this deal and explain why Deep Finesse is right.
Don’t jump to Solution too soon, or you will lose out on a great lesson hand, and ... even worse ... miss your chance to plan a very pretty end position!