Problem

The Auction:

You are South on this week’s deal and reach a contract of 4♠. Your partner used the reverse Drury convention after you opened the auction with 1♠ in fourth seat. 2♣ showed your partner has 10-12 points and 3-card support in spades asking you if your hand was light or “normal” opening. The 2♦ reverse Drury response confirmed you have full opening values. Now your task is to make the contract.

Solution

West leads the ♣A as the opening lead and repeats with the ♣6, East wins this trick with the ♣K. East leads the ♥6 next.

You have a strong hand, but the problem is transportation between hand and dummy as your only entries to dummy are trumps and the ♦A. Also you must to find a right balance between pulling the trumps and ruffing as you need trumps to ruff clubs and probably also diamonds and hearts.

The third trick offers little resistance; you take it with the ♥A.

To make ten tricks you need extra tricks in diamonds, so you next move is to lead the ♦9, take the trick with the dummy’s ♦A and lead the ♦Q. East covers it with the ♦K and you ruff.

You need to get at these diamonds at the table. And it is time to pull at least some of the trumps to avoid unpleasant surprises as East probably has no more clubs, at the same time he has indicated length in hearts. So you take the next trick with the ♠Q and lead the ♦J discarding the ♥2 from your hand.

Now the opponents have only one diamond left, after you lead the ♦5, East plays the ♦10. You ruff and West overruffs. West leads the ♥J, you take the trick with the ♥K and play the ♠K. Now the opponents have no more spades so you can play the ♣5, ruff and then play your winner – the ♦3 from dummy and ruff the last heart.

The Drury method is basically a limit raise only it keeps you at the 2-level, which might be a good idea if the auction has been opened in third or fourth seat, which might mean the opener has a weak hand.

The par contract on this deal is 3 NT. If there is 8-card major fit, it is usually preferable to play a major-suit game and not notrump game, as the former awards more points.

Despite the 8-card spade suit and sound load of points, this is one of the examples where 3NT would have been definitely much easier to play, as you could have won five tricks in spades, two in hearts and two additional in diamonds quite effortlessly.

However, with 4♠ you get more points/IMPs.

Par Contract Analysis

The par contract on this deal is 3NT by North/South.