May Hand of the Month

By Joel Hoersch ,Editor, District 22 Forum

         Í K5
          Ì A95
            Ë AJ1098
         Ê J97

Í ?            Í ?
Ì ?                  Ì ?
Ë ?            Ë ?
Ê ?            Ê ?

        Í A6
        Ì KQ102
        Ë 752
        Ê AQ85

South plays 3NT. Opening lead is ÍJ, with East showing encouragement. Plan the play at IMPs.

This month’s hand is from an old book by the great writer H.W. Kelsey titled “Challenge Match.” The setting is a high-level team game, and the reader is challenged to find the correct play ... both as declarer and as a defender ... on 64 complicated deals which offer an opportunity to win ... or lose ... a lot of IMPs. Kelsey states that anyone good enough to achieve the winning play on half of these deals will probably finish on top of any match at any level.

I took the liberty of running the hand past two of my favorite mathematicians ... Alex Kolesnik of Ventura and John Strauch of San Diego ... and they both agreed that there was a lot of meat on the bones of this layout.

So take your time with the long-range analysis. If you get baffled and give up, you can always Click Here to check out the solution ... but you’ll be missing out on a lot of fun!