Download The End Game

The end game
For this month we look again at the declarer problem of last month. South had the
task of making a four spade contract with the opening lead being the king of clubs.
Here again is the scene as the dummy hit the table.
N




A
K
6
A




K
A
K
3
9
4
5
2
S
Q
7
9
8
3
4
7
2
T
6
7
6
3
2
There are nine tricks ‘on-top’ and in order to try for a tenth, without exposing the
diamond king from a lead from East, we swapped a heart loser for a club loser and so
played low from dummy at trick one. Let us pick up the play. We win trick two as
clubs are continued discarding a heart from our own hand. The trumps are drawn
using the king and the queen and then the heart suit is tested. Ace of hearts, king of
hearts and ruff a heart in hand. This is the situation with six tricks to go and four more
are needed to fulfil the contract:N




A
4
6




9
5
4
T
S
6
3
K
9
7
At this point last month the heart suit had split evenly so that we were able to cross
over to the dummy with a trump and discard a diamond from hand on the established
thirteenth heart. For this month our normal luck has returned – the heart suit break is
4/2. So how do we proceed from here?