IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

If your partnership bids aggressively, your play of the hand must be very good or you will quickly become a favorite opponent.  Here's a case where the declarer wasn't up to the task.

Scoring:  IMPs (team)

Hand #52
Dlr   E
Vul E/W
S K1097
H A6
D J5
C QJ1094
S Q832
H J10874
D K4
C 53
    
S A64
H Q92
D A8762
C 76

S J5
H K53
D Q1093
C AK82
West North
 East
 South


Pass
 1C
   Pass
     1S    Pass
    1NT
   Pass
    3NT   
 All Pass

BIDDING:  Perhaps North should just raise to 2NT but he hoped his holding in South's first bid suit was worth the raise to game.  Also, this was a team event and he didn't want to miss out on the game bonus.

PLAY:  West led the jack of hearts, East encouraged with the nine, and South ducked.  Declarer could count only seven tricks and he decided the diamond suit offered the best chance for two additional tricks.  The second heart was won in dummy and declarer put the jack of diamonds on the table.  East ducked hoping partner might win the queen.  This was all declarer needed.  West won the king and continued hearts but declarer now had nine tricks.  He won the heart king and knocked out the ace of diamond and since West had no entry to his good hearts, the defense was finished. 

There were two mistakes made here.  When the diamond jack was led from dummy, East must rise with the ace and return his last heart.  When West regains the lead with the diamond king, he can cash two more hearts to defeat the contract.  However, South should have realized his best chance was to find the queen of spades in the West hand.

For the defense, this is another example of "play the hand, not the suit".   

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.     stats