Today’s deal is from a junior match between Israel and the USA some years ago. South was Chris Willenken of New York, a respected expert today, but a junior when this deal was played.
Both tables reached three no trump after East opened the bidding with one club. Both Wests chose to lead their own suit rather than clubs. At the other table, declarer let the heart lead run around to his jack. Assuming that West held the king of hearts for his lead, East had to hold all of the missing honors for his opening bid. Two spade finesses couldn’t work, so the declarer led a spade to dummy’s ace and took the winning diamond finesse. There was no re-entry to dummy to repeat the finesse, so declarer laid down the ace of diamonds hoping for the king to fall under it. There was no real hope when it didn’t. Declarer gave the king of diamonds to East, who returned a heart to South’s ace. There were only eight tricks before East regained the lead and led his last heart to partner.
When Willenken played the hand, he saw the problem for what it was — a shortage of entries to dummy. He took the chance that East held the king of hearts and rose with dummy’s queen of hearts at trick one. He now had two entries to dummy for two diamond finesses and brought home his contract. Well done!
