You Owe It to P

Bidding is about discussion with partner, as I have pointed out earlier. Declarer play is about taking care of business on your own. If you discuss things properly with partner, you will end up in the correct contract. Then, if you get to play the hand, you can make sure that you fulfill the agreement you have with partner. If partner has cooperated and you have reached the best spot, don't let partner down by sloppy declarer play.
Let's take a look at Board 7 from Week 08 Wednesday night's play:

Board 7 Dealer E All Vul

	AQ82 KJ8 83 AQ93
K74 964 KJ764 T6		953 52 QT J87542
	JT6 AQT73 A952 K

The bidding should be simple enough. South opens 1H and North responds 1S. Now South bids 2D: “I have at least FIVE hearts and at least FOUR diamonds”. That is because South has opened a HIGHER suit and then bid a LOWER suit. North can see that there are enough points for game, which North could see the moment South initiated the auction. In fact the combined hands are close to having enough values for a slam, but North decides to be conservative and bids to game, FOUR HEARTS, because North knows that they will have at least EIGHT trumps if hearts are trumps. Not difficult is it?

Neither should be the declarer play. Let's say a diamond is led, which is the most awkward for declarer because opponents have set up at least one diamond trick for them. Count your tricks: five heart tricks, one diamond trick, THREE club tricks, at least one spade. No problem making game, but overtricks matter as well, considerably. What can go wrong?

You have MORE than one diamond loser IF you have no trumps left in dummy AND lose the lead. Can you draw trumps and dispose of your diamond losers as well? You can dispose of your diamond losers on the CLUBS but to do that you must take your king first, in other words, UNBLOCK the suit. Technically, the best play is to draw TWO rounds of trumps, leaving the king in dummy, then cash the king of clubs and lead the third trump to dummy's king. That takes care of all opponents' trumps and you are in dummy to take the ace and queen of clubs, on which you discard two diamonds. You are now perfectly safe and can continue with your effort to make as many tricks as you can. No point in giving any away if you can help it.

You can see that the spades are such that you can make at least three tricks if WEST has the king. That can be done only one way, by finessing. You must lead the jack THROUGH West and then continue with the ten if West does not cover. So that you can start the spade suit by leading the jack, come to hand with a club ruff. Then, when you play the spades by leading the jack then the ten, you find that you actually make FOUR spade tricks in dummy, which adds up to a total of thirteen.

I have gone through the early preamble of drawing trumps, unblocking clubs, etc just to instill some good habits in the reader, but even the crudest line of play, without worrying about possible diamond losers, would have yielded thirteen tricks. Win the first trick, draw three rounds of trumps, king of clubs followed by the jack of spades without worrying about your diamond losers. That still produces thirteen tricks, so it is perplexing that there were only TWO declarers at the Hutt club in 4H and neither made all the tricks.

Ironically, only two declarers made thirteen tricks, and both were in the WRONG contract, one in 3NT and one in 4S. No, that does NOT prove that it pays to be in the wrong contract! MUCH more practice at playing your hands is needed. Lay out some cards to replicate this particular deal and play it through, it will, I assure you, begin to get you into good habits.

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