Eszter showed considerable restraint on this hand (and played it extremely well too).
NS Vulnerable, Dealer NorthYou are North and hold
North 
A
A10874
KQ983
K5
Eszter decided to open this hand with 1
rather than 1
. I'm not sure
I would have taken the same view, but it worked out very well.
BiddingNorth East South West1
1NT No No
2
No 2
All Pass
The restraint on Eszter's part came over the 1NT bid. Some people might have felt they had to "catch up" after opening the hand with 1
rather than 1
, but 2
and then a pass over 2
worked out fine.
West led the Ace of Diamonds
South (Dummy) J76543
J53
-
Q1072
North A
A10874
KQ983
K5
Eszter ruffed the opening lead. How do you plan the play?
.
.
.
Eszter did very well, realising that East might well have
KQxx, so some care was required to retain trump control. At trick 2 she led a small Club to her King, losing to East's Ace. East now led the King of Spades, taken by Eszter's singleton Ace. The KQ of Diamonds followed, Dummy shedding small Spades and East playing the Jack on the 3rd round. Now the 9
gave East few winning options. In practice they chose to ruff with the
Q and a small Club was discarded from Dummy. East now led the
Queen, ruffed in hand.
At this point East had already shown up with the
KQ, the
Q, the two Minor suit Aces and the
Jack, which is 16 hcp. I don't know if Eszter was counting, but that made it likely that
West had the
King (certainly I'd have taken the
finesse given the chance). Eszter was in hand, however, so she led the 8
, her last, ruffed by East with the 6 and overruffed with the Jack. Now a Heart off the table caught West's singleton King and the 10 disposed of East's remaining trump, the 9.
11 tricks was only worth 1½ IMPs, because of 2 NS Pairs who were playing in 4
X, 3
XX and 4
XX all making for huge scores. Several others were in Game, all going 1 or 2 off, and nobody else in the whole field made 11 tricks playing in Hearts.
Well done Eszter!
