IMPROVE YOUR PLAY

with Larry Matheny

The play to the first trick is often very important.  This hand shows that a moment of thought can prevent a costly mistake.

Scoring:  Matchpoints (Pairs)

#11-40
Dlr	N
Vul	None

	843
	Q4
	QJ65
	Q1053

	KQ10
	K53
	A10842
	J6

	752
	AJ102
	7
	98742

	AJ96
	9876
	K93
	AK

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	1NT
Pass	Pass	Pass

BIDDING:  South’s 1NT opened and closed the auction.

PLAY: West led the four of diamonds and declarer stopped to count his tricks.  He needed to get to dummy to cash the queen of clubs but entries were few.  He started to win the trick cheaply with the nine but stopped to think it through.  Then he saw that if he won the first diamond with the nine, the opponents could allow the king to win and capture the third round.  That meant no entry to dummy’s clubs.  To avoid this problem, he won the first diamond with the king.  Next he unblocked the ace-king of clubs and was delighted to see the jack drop.  He followed with a low diamond to the queen with East discarding a spade.  He cashed the queen-ten of clubs discarding a spade and a heart and had his seven tricks: 1 spade, 2 diamonds, and 4 clubs. 

Note that if declarer had won the first trick with the nine of diamonds, careful defense would defeat the contract.

Copyright ©2011 Larry Matheny