Problem

The Auction:

*New minor forcing

You are South on this defensive problem. After an uneventful auction West declares 4♥. North leads the ♠9. Can you defeat the contract?

Solution

With nine clubs gone, you holding one and four on the table, both West and North are devoid of spades now. Time to lead clubs again! You lead the ♣9, West ruffs with the ♥7 – North overruffs with the ♥9 (trick 7) and leads the ♦10. West wins the trick with the ♦J (trick 8).

Next the declarer leads a small heart to dummy`s ace (trick 9) and then leads a small club from dummy. You discard a diamond as you know North has no clubs left and if the trump split was 3-2 amongst you, North should have one more trump. West discards a diamond too; North wins the trick with the ♥J (trick 10) and leads a small spade. You take this trick with the ♥K (trick 11), the last two tricks belong to the opponents as West has two trumps.

Underleading a king? It is acceptable to lead away from a king against a suit contract. This can be a good lead, and this time it proved doubly so.

If your king is finessable, sometimes the only hope is to lead low from the suit in question, as the opponent might be pressed to play the ace either by his chosen game tactics or by thinking – RHO just led a small club to my AQ, consequently LHO has the king.

If the opponent holds AQJ (as was the case here) and would have finessed,you wouldn`t have been able to defeat the contract.

Par Contract Analysis

The par contract on this hand is 5NT by East/West.