Defense can be difficult and it doesn't help when declarer has a long
suit that was never bid. Here is a hand where the defenders were
kept in the dark and it cost them dearly.
Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)
Hand #1
Dlr
N
Vul
E/W
K64
Q74
AJ84
732
A75
1082
Q10762
106
QJ832
A963
53
J4
109
KJ5
K9
AKQ985
West
North
East
South
Pass
Pass
1NT
Pass
3NT
Pass
Pass
Pass
BIDDING: After two
passes, South decided to open with 1NT. He had the values for the
bid and also wanted to make it difficult for the opponents to
compete. North had an easy raise to game.
PLAY: West led his
fourth best diamond that rode around to declarer's hand. Using
the Rule of Eleven, declarer knew that East had no card above the
six. Rather than win the nine and block the suit, declarer won
with the king. The contract was not in danger so declarer started
looking for those important overtricks. At trick two he lead a
low heart toward dummy. He was concerned about a spade shift
through dummy but felt reasonably sure that West would not go up with
the heart ace if he held it. East won the trick and felt the best
chance was to lead a club. Declarer jumped on this and quickly
ran off six clubs and two more hearts. Dummy held the K of
spades and the AJ8 of diamonds and poor West had to discard from the
ace of spades and the Q107 of diamonds. He simply folded his
cards.
Most North-South pairs were in 3NT with two overtricks so making six
was an excellent result.
