IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

Sometimes an opening lead turns out so wrong.  Here's one I wanted to take back.

Scoring:  Matchpoints (Pairs)

Hand #39
Dlr   W
Vul E/W
S AJ108
H 63
D AQ2
C 9873
S Q765
H AQJ752
D 103
C 10
    
S 432
H 104
D J87654
C J5

S K9
H K98
D K9
C AKQ642
West North
 East
 South
2H Pass
 Pass
 3NT
All Pass
   
       

BIDDING:  I began the auction with a weak two heart bid in the West seat.  In the passout chair, South's hand was a bit strong to just bid 3C so he tried 3NT.  If he had bid only 3C, no doubt his partner would have cue bid hearts asking for a stopper so this was always going to be their final destination.

PLAY:   Rather than give declarer a heart trick, I decided to try to find an entry to my partner's hand and chose a low spade.  This turned out to be a lousy choice.  Declarer let this ride around to his hand and stopped to count his tricks.  To say that he found a great dummy is such an understatement.  Since it appeared I held the spade queen along with the heart honors, he had me cold.  He won the first trick with the king, cashed his three diamond tricks, and then ran the club suit making sure he unblocked dummy's high spots.  Holding Q76 of spades and the heart ace, I had to come down to a three cards and I was toast.  I meekly kept the Q7 of spades along with the ace of hearts so declarer led his spade to dummy's ten and had all thirteen tricks.  With the lead of a minor, most of the declarers were apparently hesitant to take the spade finesse and were content with eleven tricks.  Those who received a heart lead were happy with twelve tricks. 

Only one other pair gave up thirteen tricks...I wonder what they led?

Copyright ©2008 Larry Matheny.