Problem

The Auction:

You are North on this deal and your partner starts the auction with 1♦, which your respond with 1♠ of course. Your partner then goes to 2♣ indicating 4+ diamonds and 4+ clubs. As you have 14 points and a good seven-card spade suit you mean business and call 2 ♥ – fourth suit forcing to game. Your partner responds with 3♥ and you show your spades for the second time bidding 3♠. Your partner calls 3NT. What should you do, pass or declare 4♠?

Solution

You declare 4♠ as the final contract.

East leads the ♥A as the opening lead, taking your singleton king and leads the ♥5. You play the ♥8 from dummy, West plays the ♥10 and you ruff.

The opponents have six spades, if you miss six cards from a suit the most common split is 4-2, which occurs 48 %, and the second is 3-3, which occurs 36 %.

So it probably is quite a straightforward hand, all you have to do is to pull the trumps and then cash in the rest of your tricks with clubs and diamonds.

You start by pulling the trumps by playing the ♠A, after that you lead the ♠6. West plays low and East wins the trick with the ♠Q. East then leads the ♥Q, you know you are going to ruff of course, but must decide is the ♠4 sufficient or should you play a higher spade.

It is possible that West had six hearts and East only two – as you had a singleton heart and you partner a void in spades, the opponents might have interesting hands too, so East might overruff you. If in doubt whether to ruff with a high or low card, you choose the high card and play the ♠8,East discards a small club.

Now all you have to do is play trump again, leading the ♠J, East wins the trick with the ♠K and leads a small club you take this trick with the ♣J to your hand and lead the ♠10 catching the last small trump. After that you lead the ♦Q,East covers it with the king, you play the ♦A and can claim.

Of course going to 4♠ was a right thing to do, with a good seven-card major you should always declare, even if you have a fit in another suit (which you didn’t) as every time you play the trump the opponents lose two.

Although you had much points 3NT could have gone down as West most probably would have led a small heart, East won the first trick with the ♥A and led hearts back, so the opponents would have won three tricks in hearts straight away with more to come.

Actually you could have gone down in this contract too, after West regained the lead with the ♠Q and led hearts for the third time – if you would have been careless enough to play a small trump, East could have overruffed winning an extra trick for the opponents.

Par Contract Analysis

The par contract on this deal is 4♠ by North/South.