Two Trick Magic

Question

Looking just at our spade holding, what is the best hope of making a spade trick with both the ace and queen?

Try it in the context of the whole hand First, read the context notes below

East will hold the king 50% of the time. When they do, if you play a small card from North towards your queen, East is in a hopeless position. If they play the king, your queen becomes a winner. If they don’t, you play the queen and it wins the trick.

It’s not possible to make two tricks when West holds the king. If you start by playing the queen from South, West should play the king if they have it and you will need to play the ace to win the trick. You will now have only one trick and the opponents’ jack and ten will take tricks.

Your opponents will start by taking the first four tricks in hearts (you should discard dummy’s fourth diamond and your fourth club on the last heart trick).

You can play the remaining cards in any order you like but we want to focus on the spades, where you are missing the king with the ace in dummy and the queen in your hand, but can still make two tricks if you approach the suit in the best way. You can use your clubs and diamonds to cross from one hand to the other, winning the trick in the hand you want to lead from next.

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