IMPROVE YOUR PLAY

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY

with Larry Matheny

Bidding too quickly has caused many headaches. It pays to slow down and imagine how the auction might continue. In this hand, declarer avoided a problem by following this sound advice.

Scoring: IMPs (Teams)

#12-04
Dlr	N
Vul	N/S

	A102
	QJ962
	AK62
	2

	K4
	A87
	109853
	A85

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	Q986
	K1054
	QJ
	974

	J753
	3
	74
	KQJ1063

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

*forcing

BIDDING: South’s first reaction was to respond 1 to his partner’s opening bid, but instead stopped to anticipate the rest of the auction. He soon realized that if his partner made the very likely rebid of 2, he would have no good bid. Since he wanted to show a weak hand with a long club suit, he avoided the “One Spade Trap” and instead made a forcing 1NT response. North did indeed rebid 2 but now South could show his weak hand and long suit. North wasn’t crazy about passing but trusted his partner.

PLAY: West led the ten of diamonds to dummy’s ace. Declarer led a club to the king and West’s ace. Declarer won the diamond continuation and led a low heart won by West. East ruffed the third diamond with the nine in an attempt to promote a trump trick for his partner. But, declarer over ruffed and two more rounds of clubs took care of the trumps. Declarer now led a low spade to the ten and ended up with nine tricks: 2 spades, 2 diamonds, and 5 clubs.

This was a gain of 6 IMPs as the N/S pair at the other table failed in a spade partscore.