Hi all
On Monday I returned to Quick Tricks again, this time to ravage the field with Sanne. I promised her and myself to be a good and understanding partner. Of course my not so hidden agenda was to brutally extract points from my opponents. I was successful a couple of times.
1
1. Weak
Now to find a lead. A trump looks way too passive because I can see the suit can be set up easily. A might work but also could allow declarer to add some easy ruffs to her balance. So I decided to lead a 
, my 6 of to be precise.
This was the full deal:
Declarer glanced at me for more information, but I just sat there with a beatific smile. She played low from dummy and eventually ended up one trick short.
There are a couple of winning routes if you get a lead. You can ruff it in dummy with a top trump, then draw the outstanding trumps by hooking the Jack. Next duck a to take the finesse against the King later (communication baby!). You will score five tricks in , four trumps in your own hand and a ruff in dummy. An alternative is to set up the suit after drawing trumps, just play a small one to the King and pray for a 2-2 split. Scoring four trumps, a ruff, four and the Ace. I’m pretty sure this competent opponent would have found one of them at the table.
By the way, did you notice Sanne’s 3 call with six trumps? A fine decision, even with eleven trumps together there are just seven tricks in the bag for EW.
The first one might have been a bit lucky, this is a whole different league:
Your LHO opens a strong 2 and your RHO (me) brusquely jumps to 7NT. What do you lead?
My friend Bruce decided to lead a .
Too bad, three tricks in , seven and four add up to more than thirteen already. Dirty epic!
It seems that you can still make after the lead and misguess in clubs. Sanne presumably returned a club for you and you played a trump. This is the only way to give declarer a problem, because by hooking the heart jack and the diamond king and ruffing a spade she will have 4 hearts + 1 ruff + 2 diamonds + 3 clubs = 10.
A trump return is unpleasant because you want to do so many things. Luckily there is an easy counter. Duck a diamond. Now you are ready to draw trumps.
If they play another trump, things are easy. You draw them, cross in clubs and hook in diamonds. If they play a spade, you ruff in dummy, draw another round of trumps, play ace of diamonds and diamond ruff, draw the trumps and cross in clubs to dummy. And if they return diamonds you hook, draw trumps and claim.
Hi Kees
Sanne switched to a trump for declarer. It looks like declarer now has too much too do.
Well… setting up the
is easy, but that line seems rather implausible after my lead.