Martin's Bane

Instead of his usual commentary this week, Vil fields a question from Martin Connelly of Greytown. Martin writes:

We bid to 2NT by me, West. North leads the jack of spades. Obviously I thought about the heart suit the wrong way, as I win in dummy and lead a low heart to the king. And that is all that is required to turn a making contract into a 3 light contract. Obviously I should have led the 10 or 9 of hearts and just let it run. What have I not understood properly here? Or was I just unlucky?

the full hand is

Board 6 from Thursday 28/03/2019
Dealer E EW Vul

JT984
AQ
AQ
9872
A52
K73
JT3
KJ53
KQ6
T9852
975
AQ
73
J64
K8642
T64

Vil responds: Technically you should have bid to 3H either after a transfer sequence or without transfers but this is another one where I would just opt for 2H because West can always make a ‘super accept’ with a 14 count and four hearts but even so, playing in 2H is going to get you lots of match points, especially if you can guess the trump layout and/or opponents don’t lead diamonds.

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