Loser On Loser #07-49

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

Some hands are difficult while others seem straight-forward. Of course, some people make the simple hands more difficult than they need to be. Take a look at this example.

Scoring: Matchpoints (pairs)

Hand #49
Dlr	E
Vul	E/W

	KJ873
	765
	A96
	A3

	Q6
	K3
	J1073
	J9742

	5
	AJ10984
	K852
	108

	A10942
	Q2
	Q4
	KQ65

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

BIDDING: North's cue bid of 3

showed a big spade raise but with a minimum hand, South showed no interest in slam.

PLAY: West led the king of hearts and followed with a second round when East encouraged. Next East put the jack of hearts on the table and declarer stopped to analyze his situation. He could ruff the third heart with the ten hoping East held the spade queen. Or, he could ruff with the ace of spades and then finesse West for the queen. But there was another line available that was much more appealing. He was always going to lose a diamond so rather than guess who held the trump queen, declarer simply discarded his diamond loser on the third round of hearts. He won the club shift, drew trumps, and made his game.

Loser-on-loser plays occur frequently. It's important to look at the entire hand rather than concentrate on just one suit.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.