Coming into his own

Randy Hardwick was beginning to earn quite a reputation as a strong declarer. No-one, not even his girlfriend Voluptua, was more pleased about this than Gordon Rhode. Gordon had spent a lot of time coaching Randy and the young man had responded admirably. Initially his motivation was to win the love and affection of Voluptua but, now that was established, he was really enjoying the challenge of dummy play.

Gordon was watching from the sidelines as Randy declared 7NT as West:

♠2 ♥KQT72 ♦AKQ76 ♣AQ		♠AQ543 ♥A64 ♦JT ♣753

The lead was a neutral ♦2. Randy counted 10 top tricks (one spade, three hearts, five diamonds, and one club). If the heart suit could be brought in that would be two extra tricks. A thirteenth trick could come from a successful finesse in one of the black suits. Randy began by playing five rounds of diamonds. Both opponents followed three times and each discarded a small club and a small spade. Then he turned attention to the hearts. Realising that he needed either a 3–2 break or South to have four hearts to the Jack he played ♥K and then a small heart to the Ace. North discarded a small spade and so Randy was now able to take the marked finesse and win five heart tricks. These cards remained in his hand and dummy

♠2 ♥— ♦— ♣AQ		♠AQ ♥— ♦— ♣7

Two lines of play were now possible: either to take a spade finesse, or to play a spade to the Ace and then take the club finesse. To most declarers this would be a complete guess but Randy considered things more deeply to see if one line had more chance than other.

The most telling thing was that South had begun with exactly six black cards while North had begun with nine black cards. Therefore it was more likely that North was dealt ♠K (and more likely to hold ♣K). That indicated that the spade finesse was a better chance. But, before taking it, Randy cashed ♣A as there was a small chance that South had had to come down to ♠Kx and ♣K. No ♣K appeared so the spade finesse was then taken. It won and the contract was made.

Afterwards Gordon remarked to Frieda: “that young fellow is really coming into his own”. And later that night, in the arms of his beloved, Randy did just that.

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