IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

A good defender must always be alert for ways to defeat the contract.  Sometimes it may even require trumping your partner's good trick.  Take a look at this hand.

Scoring:  Matchpoints (Pairs)
 
Hand #20
Dlr   N
Vul E/W
S J10965
H 75
D 93
C AK64
S 8
H A1032
D AKQJ85
C 83
    
S 2
H QJ986
D 2
C QJ10972

S AKQ743
H K4
D 10764
C 5
West North
 East
 South

Pass
 Pass
 1S
    2D    4S All Pass
     

BIDDING:  The power of the spade suit strikes again.  East had good distribution but weak suits and the vulnerability kept him out of the auction.  West had a good hand but was unable to bid again over 4S.

PLAY:  West led the ace of diamonds and continued with the king.  Declarer thought he would have no problems with the contract.  He would win the third trick, draw trumps, discard a heart loser on the king of clubs, and trump all of his losing diamonds in dummy.  However, East saw that his partner would have no good continuation at trick three so he ruffed the king of diamonds and put the queen of hearts on the table.  Declarer was quickly down one.  South smiled weakly and said "nice defense". 

It was little consolation that East-West were cold for 4H; declarer knew many would succeed in 4S and he was getting a below average score.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.