You are South in a contract of four spades. Opening lead is the queen of clubs. How should you plan to play the hand given the bidding shown below?
Play of the hand: Start by counting losers: no spade losers, no heart losers (if you are careful to use dummy to ruff hearts at the right time), two diamond losers, and one club loser. It looks like you should bring this contract home. How do you give yourself the best chance to succeed?
- There is a good chance (92%) that missing diamonds will behave (splitting no worse than 4-2).
- Also, there is a good chance (95%) that spades will split no worse than 3-1.
- That means your chance for favorable splits of both suits is better than 80%.
See below for my recommended line:
It’s probably best to draw two rounds of trumps before starting the diamonds. You need to make sure a trump is left to provide an entry to dummy’s diamonds in case opponents attack hearts. Notice that the only spade honor missing in your combined holding is the ten.
Comment on the bidding: North’s 3D bid is a Bergen raise. It tells partner that North has 4-card support and less than a limit raise in spades. Marty Bergen is famous for recent innovations in bidding, and this is an example. Do you like South’s raise to game?