Improve Your Play #06-33

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

It's nice to be lucky but you still need to be able to take advantage of it. Here is a good example of just that.

Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)

Hand #33
Dlr	E
Vul	none

	Q108
	K8
	AQ1063
	AK7

	J654
	4
	KJ72
	J1092

	973
	A1032
	985
	654

	AK2
	QJ9765
	4
	Q83

West	North	East	South
		Pass	1
Pass	2*	Pass	2
Pass	2NT	Pass	3
Pass	4	Pass	4
Pass	4NT	Pass	5
Pass	6	All Pass

*Game forcing

BIDDING: This North-South partnership plays a 2/1 system. South's rebid of 2

did not show a six-card suit but was a waiting bid to see where North was headed. After North's 2NT rebid, South showed his extra heart and North cooperated by cue bidding 4

in support of hearts. South showed the spade control and that was all North needed to hear. A quick check of aces with Blackwood and the small slam was reached.

PLAY: West led the jack of clubs and declarer saw his only concern was the trump suit. Accordingly, he won the club in his hand and led a low heart toward dummy to guard against a singleton ace in the West hand. East won the ace and returned a club to dummy. A second heart to his queen uncovered the bad break. To pick up East's trumps, South had to reduce his number of hearts to the same as East. This meant ruffing two of dummy's diamonds and also finding East with 3=4=3=3 distribution. There was no alternative so he led a diamond to the ace and ruffed a diamond. Then he lead a club to dummy followed by another diamond ruff. Now he played the ace and king of spades followed by the deuce to dummy's queen. East had to follow to all of these cards and the lead was now in dummy with declarer's J9 of hearts over East's 103. Another successful slam in the score card.

Note the trump coup will not succeed if declarer doesn't reduce his trumps to the same number as East.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.