IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

As declarer it's important to eliminate or at least reduce the number of guesses you have to make.  Here is a hand where you can do just that.

Scoring:  Matchpoints (Pairs)
 
Hand #51
Dlr   E
Vul E/W
S 1098
H Q983
D K4
C K1063
S KJ
H J62
D AJ876
C 95
    
S 654
H A1075
D Q1053
C QJ4

S AQ732
H K4
D 92
C A872
West North
 East
 South


Pass
 1S
    Pass
     2S     Pass     Pass
    3D     3S All Pass

BIDDING:  As the auction was about to stop at 2S, West balanced with 3D.  North now liked the location of his diamond king and raised to 3S to end the auction.

PLAY:  With no attractive lead, West finally selected the nine of clubs.  Assuming the diamond ace to be on his left, declarer could count a loser in each of the three side suits so he had to hold his spades losers to one.  It was likely the spade king was with West but not a certainty.  The first trick went to the ten, jack, and ace.  Next, declarer made the key play of the ace of spades from his hand and was rewarded with the jack from the West hand.  Declarer now conceded a spade to the king and and made his contract.  If West had played a small card instead of the jack, declarer would have gone to dummy with a diamond, led a spade from dummy, and then guessed how to play the spade suit.  You could, of course, always find the winning play but cashing the ace before leading toward your hand often eliminates a guess. 

Unless the KJ was doubleton on your right, you must always lose one trick in the spade suit and the problem was to make sure you didn't lose more.  This type of play occurs frequently so be on the lookout for it.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.