Hand of the week 22nd March 2026

16th March Board 6

This hand was one all pairs should have been in either 6H or 6NT. Playing in 6NT you must lose one trick unless of course your opps help you to make the 13th trick.

Let’s quickly go through the bidding, E is dealer holding an unbalanced hand and 12 hcp. Their opening bid is 1D, pass from S, W holding 21hcp knows they should be in a small slam or maybe a grand slam. Now is not the time to rush straight A asking, you want to know the point count and shape of partner's hand, so you bid 1H, N passes. Partner responses 1S. Know you partner has a minimum opening hand (12-15 hcp) with probably 5Ds and 4Ss, otherwise they would have bid NT. Now is the time for Ace asking, use whatever system you prefer and you find out partner has two aces no kings. Between the 2 hands you have 4 aces an 3 kings. Partner has shown 2 aces 8 hcp, no kings, unless they were fibbing and this is no the time to do it as you are vulnerable they have another 4+hcp undisclosed, which cant be 4 jacks as you hold two, so it could be 2 Qs or one Q and two Js. Bid 6NT or 6H.

I already mentioned you can make 6NT. Can you make 7H.

Lets play the hand, a common lead from N was a club. You win first trick with JS (I prefer to put the bottom card of a sequence as it reminds me that the remaining cards are all winners). Now to get the trumps out, lead to Q in Dummy and back to AK in hand.

Now comes the crucial play, you really don’t want take the AQ spade finesse, so play KD in hand and across to AD in Dummy. Ruff a D from Dummy and your prays have been answered Ds split 3/3 leaving best 2Ds in Dummy. Now play AKQ of Cs and discard Q64 of Ss from dummy. Cross to AS and play a D discarding last S in hand and then ruff last D in dummy with last H in hand.

Hand Below: