An interesting hand from Malahide on Thursday night ..Hand 9

 Ireland Imp pairs every night 830pm has some good exciting hands ..We call them Elvis hands ..

All shook up...

Last Friday morning while reviewing the Malahide offering from the night before one spotted hand 9 had many people going down without any fight in 4S on this offering 

the play started generally with a small heart lead to the Heart King and trick 2 was Heart Ace and 

trick 3 was another Heart which you probably ruff. 

How come a string of Inter As and Masters went down quietly in this hand which to me looks like 10 tricks on top. I had a look at the 2 folks who made it. Line number 2 blasted into the running all my 6 spades line and hope the opposition will crumble which they did. It is hopeless for 2 defenders with no signals or idea what to signal or how to go about it to stop 4S. On the run of the spades the defenders threw away some cards and eventually bared down to 2-2 in clubs and the declarer played Ace and another club to establish his 3rd club as the 10th trick. Its very hard for defender East to figure out what to discard but an early club ..keeping one saver on his Club King doomed him. He had some hearts to discard first while he pondered his fate ... 

Meanwhile up on line 1 the defence quickly attempted to cash diamond Ace attracting the declarers interest to the Diamond QJT in dummy and this declarer managed to set up the diamonds and pitch a losing heart before making 11 tricks. The other 7 declarers failed to get near 10 tricks at all. 

So why did so many fail to make 10 tricks legitimately ..