Improve Your Play #06-06

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY #06-06 with Larry Matheny

A common mistake when declaring or defending a hand is the failure to remember the auction. There is often a lot of information available if you just stop and reflect. This hand is typical.

Scoring: Matchpoints

Hand #6
Dlr	N
Vul	N-S

	65
	KJ3
	963
	A10942

	109873
	Q96
	KJ7
	63

	AKQ2
	8
	Q10852
	875

	J4
	A107542
	A4
	KQJ

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	1
Pass	2	Pass	3
Pass	4	Pass	4
All Pass

BIDDING: After receiving a raise from partner, South's hand was good enough for a game try of 3

. North's hand was certainly worth bidding game but he cue bid the club ace in case South was probing for slam. South then signed off in game.

PLAY: West led the ten of spades won by East with the queen. East cashed another top spade and then switched to a low diamond. Declarer won the ace and had to decide how to play the trump suit. With no other information, declarer would play the top two honors but he stopped to recall the auction. East has passed at his first opportunity and had shown up with the top three spade honors. And, South realized if West held the top three diamond honors he would have led one. This marked East with a diamond honor, probably the queen. Armed with this information, declarer played the heart ace followed by a low heart to the jack. He then was able to draw the last trump and make eleven tricks by discarding his diamond loser on the long club suit.

Note that East made it easy for declarer to place the high cards. A better play would be to win the first spade with the ace and then play the queen in an attempt to convince declarer the king was in the West hand.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.