Last week Johnny Supremo pulled off a routine 4H contract, which many other declarers failed to do. And all that Johnny did was to take out some extra insurance on the play. On the queen of clubs lead, dummy came down with 9876......K54......AJ843....K, opposite declarer's K10.....A98732.....K92....A6
On most tables, wayward declarers took the trick in dummy with the club King, playing out King/Ace of hearts to get the relatively bad news of a 3-1 trump break......but then at trick 4, they all went for the diamond finesse after playing the King of diamonds first from their own hand. Clearly if the finesse worked with diamonds breaking 3-2, the 4th diamond could then dispose of 10 of spades and pull the outstanding queen of trumps at the same time. Eleven tricks would be there courtesy of 2C, 4D, 2 top hearts, and 3 ruffs.
However, the diamond finesse failed.....and so defenders patiently waited for their 4 tricks instead ( 1H, 1D, and 2 spades ). But not Johnny......at trick 2, he tackled spades next by leading up to the King in hand. Losing to Ace on his left, the astute defender now elected to play a trump ( taken by Johnny in hand with the Ace ). Again Johnny played on spades................ the 10 losing to his LHO's queen, who promptly played another trump, which Johnny casually ducked. Now the RHO continued with a 3rd round of trumps to clear the last one from dummy. Once in dummy with the heart King, Johnny's foresight was now to be rewarded........ because, when the 3rd round of spades was played the all important jack popped out just as Johnny had hoped. This of course was immediately ruffed. So with a diamond entry still intact in dummy, Johnny was able to get over there to dispose of a losing diamond in hand on the established 9 of spades . The contract was therefore made by taking 2 top hearts, 2 diamonds, 2 clubs, 1 spade, and 3 ruffs. Obviously, if the spades didn't behave, the maestro could still fll back on the diamond finesse.
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