Problem

The Auction:

    Pass

* Texas transfer

You are North declaring 4♠ after your partner`s Texas transfer. After seeing both hands you realize that you might be defeated, as you miss the ♣AK, the ♦A and the ♠K.

Solution

Your fears were not unfounded, as East leads the ♣A and then the ♣K winning two tricks.

Next, East then leads the ♣3. You cannot afford to lose this trick, so despite having the ♣Q you cover the ♣3 with the ♠10 from dummy. West discards the ♥5.

With two missing spades the most probable split is 1-1, so you might try drawing trumps. But if West have had a singleton ♠K he would surely have taken the third clubs trick. East doubled – consequently he must have HCP, so most probably East has the ♦A and the ♠K. So you decide to finesse the ♠K.

As the lead is in the dummy, you play the ♥7, win the trick with the ♥A and lead the ♠9 from hand. East covers it with the ♠8, you play the ♠2 from dummy and West discards diamonds.

Now you can lead the ♠4 from hand, and take down the ♠K with the ♠A. After that you are out of the woods, it is a piece of cake to take three tricks with hearts and let the opponents one more with the ◆A.

In this problem it is vital to determine, where the ♠K is, as most probably you cannot avoid losing one trick in diamonds – as you miss the ace and the distribution of suits does not allow you to get rid of the diamonds.

Thus you cannot afford to lose one more trick in spades and must guess the placement of the ♠K correctly. Luckily for you the opponents made the task easier by leading clubs three times in a row, thus enabling you to guess the trump distribution.

Par Contract Analysis

The par contract on this deal is 4NT by North-South