Search for the Queen #1

West leads ♦AKQ on which East follows twice and discards a spade later. West continues with the ♦10.

1. How many hearts does East have?
2. How many spades does East have?
3. How many diamonds does East have?
4. How many clubs does East have?
5. Will you ruff? If yes, with what? If not – What will you discard?
6. You discard the ♥3 from dummy. West wins his ♦10 and plays a spade. Where is the ♣Q?
7. How will you tackle clubs?

Answers

1. How many hearts does East have?
   Five. Opponents have 9 cards in hearts. West opened 1♦, therefore he doesn’t have 5 hearts. So East has the long hearts.
2. How many spades does East have?
   Five. With less than five cards he would bid 1♥ first.
3. How many diamonds does East have?
   Two. He followed to 2 rounds of diamond, then showed out.
4. How many clubs does East have?
   One.
5. Will you ruff? If yes, with what? If not – What will you discard?
   Don’t ruff. If you ruff low, East will overruff. If you ruff with the ♣10, there a chance East will overruff. If you ruff with the ♣K, the trick will be yours but you will lose a heart for sure plus it will be much harder to capture the ♣Q. Discard a heart – loser on loser. It will make it easier for you to ruff a heart in dummy later.
6. You discard the ♥3 from dummy. West wins his ♦10 and plays a spade. Where is the ♣Q?
   Probably with West as East has only one club.
7. How will you tackle clubs?
   Play the ♣A first. If East has ♣Q singleton you will smash it now. If East follows with a low club, finesse the ♣10 next.

Click the Next button in the diagram to follow the play.

Things to remember:

• Counting is everything. You can count tricks, points and distributions. Don’t give up the privilege of counting.
• When East changed suit, West would have been forced to bid, unless South bid something. Pass from West shows that he has nothing more to add at this point, besides the opening which he already showed. Don’t worry! Your partner still gets another chance to bid, and he will bid if he has more to say. It is a common mistake of many players to bid 2NT, which promises 18-19 points. Just pass if you have nothing extra, even if South bid at the 2 level and even if you hold stoppers in his suit!
• With 5-5, always bid the higher suit first.
• 8 ever, 9 never. That’s a statistic rule which means: If you are missing the Q – With an 8-card suit it’s better to finesse, and with 9 cards it’s better to play for the drop (play AK). But... statistics might fail. Better to count.