Both vulnerable. South deals.

Both vulnerable. South deals.
NORTH
x Q J 5 4
u K Q 8
v 10 4
w J 6 4 3
WEST EAST
x 6 2 x 9 3
u J 7 5 u A 10 6 3
v Q J 9 8 3 v A 7 5 2
w Q 9 8 w 7 5 2
SOUTH
x A K 10 8 7
u 9 4 2
v K 6
w A K 10
The bidding:
SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST
1x Pass 2x Pass
3u Pass 4x Pass
Pass Pass
Opening lead: Queen of v
If you have two lines of defense that require finding partner with some cards, it is usually right to play partner for the weaker of the holdings. If you are wrong, you might still be able to recover, but that might not be the case if you play for partner to hold the stronger of the two holdings.
The auction was neat and led to a good contract. South's bid of three hearts was a help-suit game try, and North could hardly have a better heart holding for game purposes.
West led the queen of diamonds and the dummy that appeared was disheartening to the defense. Not only did North have a near-maximum for a single raise, but the cards appeared to be perfectly placed. Before playing to the first trick, East took some time to consider the possibilities. Obviously, East-West had one diamond trick and it was unlikely that they had a trump trick. Therefore, to beat the contract the defenders would have to collect either two heart tricks and one club, or two club tricks to go with the ace of hearts.
To score two club tricks, West would have to hold either the ace-queen or king-queen of clubs. To take two tricks in hearts and one in clubs, West needed only the jack of hearts and the queen or king of clubs. At best, the former needed to have six points in clubs versus four points in the two suits in the latter. East decided to play for two heart tricks and so rose with the ace of diamonds at trick one and shifted to a low heart!
Declarer captured the jack of hearts with the queen, drew trumps and then played the ace, king and ten of clubs. Unfortunately for South, West won with the queen and reverted to a heart, and East's A 10 in the suit had to take two tricks whether declarer played high or low from dummy.
Note that this defense was critical. Without a heart shift at trick two, declarer has time to set up the jack of clubs for a heart discard.
& copy; 2005 Tribune Media Services
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