Too Good a Hand
By Mike Lawrence

Sometimes, it is possible to have too good a hand. This is especially true when declarer knows it too.

West led the three of spades to East's ace. East, hoping that West had the ten of spades, continued the suit, allowing South to finesse the ten, dummy discarding a club. West followed with the two so it seems that East started with five spades. South has nine tricks, but may not be able to keep West off lead. A heart switch would be painful and that surely is what West would lead.

Since it is safe to lose a diamond to East, South played the ace of diamonds and finessed the next round into the East hand. This is a case of your wanting to lose a finesse, but this one won the trick, East discarding a heart.

What next? You can't set up a long club any more because you pitched one on the second round of spades. Nor can you really hope that West has the ace of hearts.

Try this. If South can guess the distribution, he may be able to embarrass East. By playing the king of diamonds, East may be put under enough pressure that he has to surrender a trick.

On the king of diamonds, East does in fact discard a spade. This play gives you the contract on the assumption that East has the ace of hearts.

Come to the king of clubs and play the queen and another spade, discarding diamonds from dummy. East wins but has nothing good to lead. He does have the hand you were hoping for and that means East is done in.