User:JZCL/Bridge hands
This is a collection of some of my favourite bridge hands. Some I have played, others I have observed and others I have heard about.
An unusual unblocking play
[edit]| West plays in 3NT | ♠ | J9752 | |||
| ♥ | 975 | ||||
| ♦ | 874 | ||||
| ♣ | 84 | ||||
| ♠ | KQT | N |
♠ | 84 | |
| ♥ | QJ63 | ♥ | A2 | ||
| ♦ | A652 | ♦ | Q3 | ||
| ♣ | J2 | ♣ | KQT9753 | ||
| North leads ♠5 | ♠ | A63 | |||
| ♥ | KT84 | ||||
| ♦ | KJT9 | ||||
| ♣ | A6 | ||||
North's spade goes to South's Ace and South intelligently returns the King of hearts, the Merrimac coup play. How should West plan the play?
This deal was played as the final deal of Channel 4's Master Bridge series, broadcast in the 1980s. At both tables, West won the Ace of hearts in the dummy and played for the singleton Ace of clubs to drop, or for a defender to err. When that failed West knocked out the Ace of clubs and played along elimination lines, cashing the spades and cashing the Queen Jack of hearts; at both tables South correctly unblocked the ten eight (keeping hold of the losing four of hearts) to avoid being endplayed in diamonds and giving declarer an entry to dummy!
Declarer could, unbelievably, have succeeded by unblocking the six of hearts from her hand at trick two, as now South would be forced on lead with the four at the end.