Interestingly I only changed one thing on the card and, lo and behold, the change came up on the very first board and we both remembered. A good start!
We had one very exciting hand to play (well, Julia did):
(press Next to see the lead and dummy)
There were some subtleties that I read into the auction that, perhaps, were not there, but the play's the thing. What's your line?
I think there are two main lines to consider. You can play three rounds of clubs, discarding two hearts and then ruff a heart. This needs clubs 4-3 (62%) or, if 5-2, the hand with short clubs to only hold two diamonds. The alternative is the ruffing spade finesse (50%) and hoping for 3-3 spades or the hand with short spades to only hold two diamonds. It seems that playing clubs is best.
Julia found a third line though.
Julia drew two rounds of trumps, cashed the ace of spades and then crossed to the queen of clubs. She now played the queen of spades. If North does not cover, then she planned to ruff and revert to playing clubs intending to ruff dummy's losing heart. However when North played the king of spades, she ruffed a club back to hand and played the winning jack of spades, pitching a heart. Although spades were 4-2, South had no trumps remaining and the contract made.
As it happened, this was the only winning line as the full hand shows:
Overall we scored 60.5% so my task, to get a counting score for Julia, was done.
But a final problem on this hand. Some West players opened two spades. How would you bid now with the East hand?
