problem tswt2

Problem 3.2

	♠ 6 5 ♥ K 7 2 ♦ Q 4 ♣ AKT943		WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH Pass 1 ♣ 2 ♦ Dbl Pass 3 ♣ Pass 3 NT Pass 4 ♣ Pass 4 ♥ Dbl Pass Pass 6 NT Pass Pass Pass
♠ J983 ♥ JT8654 ♦ T6 ♣ 5		♠ QT74 ♥ Q ♦ KJ9873 ♣ 86
Lead ♦ 10	♠ A K 2 ♥ A 9 3 ♦ A 5 2 ♣ Q J 7 2

Examine Blue. You have 11 sure tricks in the form of 6♣’s, 1♦, 2♥’s and 2♠’s. So L=2. Assuming East holds at least 6♦’s for his jump overcall, then only East can stop the third round of ♦’s. From the double of 4♥, you think that West might hold 5 or more hearts. In this case, both East and West will share the guard against the ♠2. Thus, ♠2 is the “S-guard”, the ♦2 and ♥7 must be the suits the opponents guard. Note, the ♥9 can not be a threat, because the all three threats can not be in the same hand. The ♥7 is in the upper hand to WEST, and the other two are in upper hand to EAST.

You play the ♦Q with virtually no hope it will win. East overtakes with the ♦K and you duck. What you need to do is rectify the count ducking the first diamond. When you duck the first trick, EAST will continued with a ♦, which you win. Happy he didn’t lead a ♠ since you like to have two winners in endings where spades become a shared threat.

We will revisit this hand in the next chapter where both opponents hold at least three cards in each major to show how to compensate for a flaw in the double squeeze ending.