Locating a Couple of Jacks

Step bridge, 2004

	J A J 10 x x x A Q x 8 6 x
A x x x x x x x K x x x J		Q x x x x K x x x J A 7 5
Lead: A	K Q 10 9 8 x x x K Q 10 9 x x

I don't remember the bidding exactly, but I think it went like this. I opened 3 as south, west bid spades, north hearts, east more spades, and finally 5 by north.

As 2 tricks have to be lost to the black aces, I was again at the helm of a rather high conract. However, bidding high provides good stories.

West switched to a middle high heart. It seemed like a singleton or doubleton so I jumped up with the ace and continued with a small club. I went up with the king felling the singleton jack on my left.

I continued with the diamond 10. I needed a double finesse or some lucky break, or maybe some luck in the heart suit. As the 10 was not covered and the double finesse had apriori little chance of succes, I decided to play the diamond queen, thereby felling another singleton jack! Well, with a singleton jack in west and north, east was entitled to have a singleton jack of his own ;-).

Now the deal started to look much better. I continued with the heart jack, covered and ruffed. The play of the club queen now left east with only loosing options:

1. East wins the club ace. Now north has 2 entries in the diamond ace and club eight to ruff out the hearts and use them for throwing my losing diamonds on.
2. East ducks the club ace. Now one losing diamond can be thrown on a heart and the other one can be ruffed by north.