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Morton’s Fox presents West with two equally bad options

Not a lot happening at the Bridge Club right now. For your diaries, November 12-16 is a STAC week, November 20 is a Junior-Senior game and then on December 8, it’s the Christmas party where you can eat and ... play even more bridge !!This hand came up last night on Bridge Base Online and declarer missed a great chance to pull off a nice play. Try and solve it and I’ll give you a hint ... it involves a Morton’s Fork coup!Board 3. E/W Vul. Dealer South.S-Q876H-Q984D-NoneC-K9732S-A2H-K5D-AK104C-AQJ64WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH1C1D dbl Pass 2DPass 3C Pass 6CNorth had a great hand for his negative double with some points and great shape … over South’s forcing 2D bid he retreated to 3C and that was all South needed to hear to bid the club slam.West led the diamond queen and things didn’t look great with apparently a loser in each major suit, but were in fact pretty good given that West probably held the Ace of hearts for his bid. The key is for South to ruff the first diamond and not commit himself to any discards from dummy too early . Now declarer draws two rounds of trumps ending in hand and leads the heart nine … West is dead !The full hand :S-Q876H-Q984D-NoneC-K9732S-K10 S-J9543H-AJ3 H-10762D-QJ9876 D-543C-85 C-10S-A2H-K5D-AK104C-AQJ64If he takes the Ace, declarer wins any return, cashes the heart king and ruffs a diamond in dummy to discard the losing spade on the heart queen contract made! If, on the other hand, West ducks the heart, declarer wins in dummy, comes to hand with a spade and discards both dummy’s hearts on the Ace- King of diamonds, ruffs the heart and claims! That is the Morton’s Fork West has two options … neither of them good!

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