IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny
Matchpoint scoring awards
bold bidding and bold play. Here was a
hand where good defense should prevail but the defenders had to carefully watch
the spot cards.
Scoring: Matchpoints
(Pairs)
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BIDDING: North wasn’t
sure how to bid his hand but finally boldly raised to 3NT.
PLAY: West led a low spade to East’s ace and declarer’s
five. East now returned the THREE of
spades and declarer followed with the six.
West started to win cheaply with the seven but stopped and wondered
“Where is the TWO of spades?”. East’s
return of the three showed an original holding of two, three, four, or five
spades. Two wasn’t possible since
declarer would have bid a six-card suit.
With A32, East would return the three but declarer would not have failed
to play a higher card than the six. So
that meant East began with four or five spades.
Declarer could have concealed the deuce to confuse the defense but it
was also possible that East had five.
Finally, West won the second spade with the QUEEN and followed with the
king and the seven. East won the last
two spade tricks to defeat the contract.
Several
N/S pairs bid to the good club game, some played in a club partial, but many
were successful in a 3NT contract that should have been defeated.
Copyright ©2011 Larry
Matheny