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English 55 The 52nd International Tel Aviv Festival (1) Ram Soffer Our English section for this month and the next two will feature some interesting deals from the 52 nd Tel Aviv Bridge Festival, held between Jun 22-29, 2018. This month’s exhibit is taken from the Mixed Teams tournament (Round 6), which began the festival. The reader is invited to find the best line of play in six hearts (by West), with only the East-West hands visible. Board 23. Dealer South, Vul All ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AKQ8 KT765 7 AK6 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ J5 AQ84 T85 8542 Contract: Six Hearts by West; Lead: ♦ K West has a big hand. He opens 1 ♥ and after, say, a Bergen 3♣ response (4-card support, 7-9 HCP) he decides to ask for keycards. After finding out that his partner has one keycard plus the queen of hearts, he bids a small slam. North leads the diamond king. In case of a normal trump break, the play would be easy: Draw trumps in two or three rounds, ruff two diamonds in hand and discard two of dummy’s clubs on declarer’s spades. The only case where anything can go wrong is when trumps are 4-0. If South has all the missing trumps, one should start with A or Q from dummy and them finesse towards the KT. In case North has them, it is possible to start off with K and then lead a small trump twice towards dummy, catching the Jack- Nine in a double finesse. Is it possible to know which line is better? Try to answer this question yourself before reading on. As a matter of fact, none of the five declarers who played six hearts in the Mixed Teams made his contract, and none of them played correctly! Upon deeper analysis, it turns out that we have a “textbook” hand. At first sight, the two alternative lines (start trumps with the king or with a high card from dummy) appear equivalent, but in fact one of them is better by far. That’s because the contract cannot be made when South has all the missing trumps, unless South’s distribution is exactly 4-4-2-3. If one starts by ruffing two diamonds (using up the spade jack as an entry) and finessing towards declarer’s king-ten, there would be no entry to dummy in order to draw the last trump! So one has to start by three rounds of trumps (ace, queen and small to the ten) after ruffing a diamond, but the club loser must be ruffed in dummy before the fourth round of trump, which means one has to play four rounds of spades and three rounds of clubs while South still holds the trump jack. Playing like this, one needs South to have exactly four spades and three clubs to make the contract. However, in case North has four trumps, there are no problems whatsoever, provided the king of hearts is laid down at trick two.