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Time to go back to defence and to signalling. Last Wednesday's X-Clubs Board 15 involves very basic signalling for the defenders. No guesswork at all should be involved, but even so almost half the NS pairs allowed East to make one more trick than East should have made as declarer.

Board 15 from Wednesday 14/04/2021
Dealer S NS Vul

	7542 T8 JT6 Q964
AK86 62 A984 753		J AKQJ9754 7 JT2
	QT93 3 KQ532 AK8

Last Wednesday's board 20 provided us with a simple lesson in declarer play, but simple as it may seem, only three Wests out of thirteen managed to make all the available thirteen tricks, either in No Trumps or spades. West has a standard 1NT (12-14) opening bid and East, with both the majors, should look for a major suit fit with a Stayman 2C bid. But some Easts may be either too ignorant, or too lazy, or too confident because of their high point count, and bid 3NT without bothering about the majors. That is a moot point and of no relevance to what we want to discuss, which is basic declarer play to make as many tricks as possible and as safely as possible. Take a look:

Board 20 from Wednesday 7/04/2021
Dealer W All Vul

	K5 J63 97542 Q87
Q842 AQ AQT T652		AJT9 KT72 J8 AK3
	763 9854 K63 J94

Most Norths opened this hand with 1NT though some opened 1C and rebid 2C. Against 1NT, East should lead the KING of spades and not the 8. WHY?

Board 17 from Wednesday 31/03/21
Dealer N Nil Vul

Harking back to Wednesday Play (14) here's another common situation. Here are the West’s and dummy’s hands.
Dummy (North)

KQ32

KJ

QT2

QJT4

You (West):

82

A963

J93

AK96

What I thought was a very basic question resulting from Board 14 from Wednesday 24/3/21 turned out to be more complicated than I thought, at least for many readers. Let’s look again:

Against South’s 4S, let’s say you decide to lead the ace of clubs, not what I would recommend but what many players did lead. Here is what you see in dummy when you lead your club ace.

Dummy (North)

8732

QT

QT

KQJT4