IMPROVE YOUR PLAY

With Larry Matheny

The top honors usually get all of the attention but as this hand shows, we also have to give proper respect to the lower denominations.

Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)

#14-20
Dlr	N
Vul	E/W

	J53
	8
	Q92
	AKQ863

	A82
	J93
	K10875
	75

	Q9
	10765
	A63
	J92

	K10764
	AKQ2
	J4
	104

West	North	East	South
-	1	Pass	1
Pass	2	Pass	2
Pass	2	Pass	4
Pass	Pass	Pass

Bidding: South used the New Minor Forcing convention (2) to discover North’s distribution and then bid the spade game.

Play: West led the seven of diamonds to the ace and won the diamond return with the king. He exited with a third diamond as declarer discarded a heart. Realizing he still had to lose to the spade ace, declarer led dummy’s jack of spades hoping the queen was in the East hand. East covered with the queen and West won declarer’s king with the ace. No matter how declarer tried, he still had to lose a second spade trick.

The winning play is to start the spade suit by leading a low one from dummy. Declarer plays the ten from his hand noting that East had contributed the nine. West wins the ace and exits with a club to dummy. Hoping the queen is now alone in the East hand, declarer plays a low spade from dummy and wins the queen with his king. A spade back to the jack brings the game home.

It doesn’t pay to ignore the eight and the nine.

Copyright 2014