South’s slightly aggressive jump rebid caused North to use Key Card Blackwood — standard among today’s tournament players. The fiveclub response showed zero or three key cards, among the four aces and the king of the agreed trump suit. On some auctions, as here, the trump suit is implied rather than specifically agreed. North, presuming three key cards due to South’s jump rebid, continued with five diamonds, asking for the queen of trumps. The sixspade bid promised that queen and denied any side king.
An opening diamond lead would have given declarer no chance. West, however, cannot be faulted for his choice of a club. Most would lead the same thing. South won the opening lead in hand with the queen and drew trumps in two rounds. He now had to decide whether to play on diamonds or hearts. The decision is clear cut, but many players would err by taking the diamond finesse. A successful diamond finesse will lead to one heart discard, but South will still have to guess whether West has the ace of hearts or the queen of hearts.
A successful finesse for the queen of hearts, however, will eventually allow a discard of a diamond from the South hand. The diamond finesse will not be needed. Only having to take one finesse is much better than needing two finesses. Running the 10 of hearts after drawing trumps is the correct play, and it would “bring home the bacon” on today’s deal.
