Improve Your Play #06-48

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

If you're not in the best contract, even good declarer play isn't enough. Here's a good example.

Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)

Hand #48
Dlr	E
Vul	E/W

	K762
	J92
	A975
	K8

	Q10
	AK10753
	J4
	1065

	J9854
	64
	Q863
	74

	A3
	Q8
	K102
	AQJ932

West	North	East	South
		Pass	1
1	DBL*	Pass	3
Pass	3	Pass	4
Pass	5	All Pass

* Negative Double

BIDDING: North's cue bid of 3

asked South to bid 3NT with a heart stopper. Not realizing the value of the queen opposite JXX, South declined and North raised to the club game.

PLAY: After winning the first two heart tricks, West continued with a third round. The first reason was to allow partner to ruff out dummy's jack, and the second was the possibility partner would ruff with an honor and promote the ten of clubs. Declarer was now stuck with what appeared to be a losing trick in diamonds. After drawing three rounds of trumps, he realized that West had started with nine cards in hearts and clubs and therefore would likely be short in the other two suits. With a squeeze against East in mind, declarer next played three rounds of spades ruffing in hand. Now he knew West held only two diamonds so he tightened the noose around East. On the last trump, East had to discard from

J and

Q86 while dummy held

7 and

A9 and declarer held

K102. A discard from either suit would give declarer his eleventh trick.

This was a well played hand by declarer. Unfortunately, several pairs were in 3NT also making eleven tricks for a better score. In most of those cases, South opened the bidding 1NT and the higher scoring game was quickly reached.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.