This deal from the penultimate round of the McConnell qualifier was not without interest:
The first question to be addressed is what should South lead?
There does not appear to be much point in staring with the [H]A, although it does allow you to take a look at dummy. Here it works if you switch to the [D]Q or more simply a spade.
You could opt to lead a spade – here that might work, but having won in dummy if declarer plays a low club and North goes in with the king and returns a spade declarer can get home by putting in the jack. Not too difficult as hearts must be 6-1 and North is unlikely to have the [H]AK and the [C]K.
If you reject both of those possibilities in favour of a diamond, which card will you choose?
Given that you have an entry why not start with the [D]A? Then it is easy enough to continue with the [D]Q.
However, on the two occasions where East was in 3NT South’s choice was the [D]6. That allowed declarer to win in hand with the jack. How should declarer continue?
Running the [C]Q is fine if North wins, but what if the finesse holds? Repeating it allows North to win and play a diamond when there are only eight tricks. It might be best to forget all about the finesse, and play a spade to the ace at trick two followed by a low club. If either defenders wins that you should be in clover and if the [C]10 holds you can cash the [S]K and then play the [C]Q.
Although I don’t know how the bidding or play went, I can tell you that Danuta Kazmucha made 3NT for Edmonds and Hatice Ozgur did the same for Galatasaray SK. That represented a major setback for teams Baker and Germany.
