Today's Koch Korner hand originated from a Swiss Team event in North St. Paul. There, John & Co. earned a most impressive 170 VP's out of 180!
With plays like the one John found on the hand below, 170 is no surprise at all!
Congratulations, John - and readers: enjoy!
You write:
The opening leader should resist the
impulse to cash all his winners. Even three is too many because East is forced to reduce to two hearts, putting the defenders out of touch with each other.
West must limit himself to two spades and exit with a low heart to East’s ten. Declarer cashes the top diamonds, crosses to the ♡K, and knocks out the ♢Q. But East still has a heart to reach partner’s ♡Q, setting the contract two.
You seem to have overlooked that after only 2 spade tricks for the defense
a) declarer can go to dummy in clubs instead of the heart king to play the third diamond to establish the jack
b) that declarer after 2 spade tricks has only followed suit and not discarded a heart yet, while East had to discard a heart. On a heart switch declarer can simply duck a heart and get ninth trick from heart.
It seems to me there is no defense after declarer returns a spade.
Posted by: Rainer Herrmann | November 28, 2011 at 06:45 AM