IMPROVE YOUR PLAY

with Larry Matheny

As declarer you must manage your entries carefully. As a defender you must make it as difficult as possible to prevent declarer from moving effortlessly between his hand and dummy. In this hand, a defender made it way too easy.

Scoring: IMPs (Teams)

#12-03
Dlr	S
Vul	N/S

	64
	K1092
	J108
	AK42

	95
	Q87
	9652
	Q1085

	A82
	AJ654
	A73
	97

	KQJ1073
	3
	KQ4
	J63

West	North	East	South
			1
Pass	1NT	2	2
Pass	2NT	Pass	3
Pass	4	Pass	Pass
Pass

BIDDING: North-South reached a marginal game but it was a team event and vulnerable games with any potential should be reached.

PLAY: West led the seven of hearts and East hesitated a moment before playing the jack. This convinced declarer that West had led from Q87. Declarer noted one potential loser in each suit. At trick two, East cashed the ace of diamonds and after a discouraging card from West, exited with a club. Declarer’s only chance was to establish a heart for the discard of a club loser and, to accomplish this, he needed three entries to dummy. So he unblocked the queen of diamonds on the ace and won the club switch in dummy. Next, he played the king of hearts from dummy and ruffed East’s ace. Now he led the king of spades won by East. East exited with his last club won in dummy. Declarer now ruffed a heart and the queen fell on his left. He simply drew trumps and entered dummy with the jack of diamonds to discard his club loser on the good nine of hearts.

East should have realized the danger in the heart suit and prevented declarer from reaching dummy with a diamond. At trick two he should attack dummy’s entries by shifting to a club.

Copyright ©2012 Larry Matheny