Mistakes Larry Klimko 805-964-0334 lklimko@ispwest.com I've heard it said once that mistakes at the club level are rampant. Players make mistakes in abundance and most go unnoticed and are buried when the cards are shuffled for the next duplicate game. The following hand, played recently at the Bridge Center (and rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise for convenience), provides an example. Dealer: South 9 8 3 Vul: both Q 10 5 J 4 2 A J 8 7 A J 10 7 4 2 J 8 6 K 9 4 3 2 A 7 5 3 K Q 8 6 K 10 9 2 K Q 6 5 A 7 10 9 Q 6 5 4 3 The traveller: NS ------ 3CS +4 130 6 1NTE -1 100 5 2DW +2 -90 4 3CN -1 -100 3 2HE +2 -110 1- 1HE +2 -110 1- 3HE +3 -140 0 The bidding at my table went (I won't tell you which way I was sitting): W N E S --- --- --- --- P 1NT* P 2D** P 2H P P 3C All Pass ------- * 11-14 ** transfer Study the play and see how many mistakes you can find, both on declarer's part and on the defenders' parts. West led the heart six, low from dummy, king, ace. Low club, ten, jack, deuce. Spade three, four, king, ace. Spade jack to the queen. Low club, king, ace, clearing trumps. Low club back to the queen. Heart seven, eight, ten, winning. Declarer next played the heart queen from dummy and pitched a diamond. That's enough. Declarer lost one diamond and one more spade, making an overtrick. Before you read on, go back over the play and see if you can spot the errors. 1. The first error stands out. On the opening heart play East put up the king, playing third hand high. This situation happens to be an exception to that rule. East needed to put in the nine, saving the king to cover the ten or queen. Had he done so, his nine would have forced declarer's ace and declarer would have been deprived of three heart tricks and hence the diamond pitch. Declarer would have lost one heart, two spades and (providing the defense was alert) two diamonds for down one. That would have improved East-West's matchpoint score somewhat. Notice that East can read the position fairly easily. By studying the low heart spots which he can see, he can know that West's lead is his lowest heart. Therefore, West cannot be holding a doubleton heart (he would have led high-low); and he cannot be holding a singleton (he opened 1NT). So West holds three or four hearts. Declarer holds only one or two, and one of them must be the ace since it is not right for West to underlead an ace on opening lead against a suit contract. If declarer holds the singleton ace, East MUST hold back his king. And if declarer holds two hearts and the other one is the jack, it cannot help to put up the king. And if declarer's second heart is not the jack, the nine will force the ace. This final conclusion may be painful, but what it says is that East was simply throwing his heart king away when he played it at trick one. He needed to save it for an important task - to stop the queen or ten. 2. West can be faulted as well. When he was in with the spade ace, he knew that declarer knew the heart position. East's play of the king located the jack for declarer. And West also knew that declarer could have at most two hearts since East had transferred into hearts. Therefore, declarer had a pitch coming on the hearts. It might be imperative for the defense to take what tricks they had coming quickly, before declarer could take a pitch on the heart. West needed to count points. Declarer had shown the heart ace and the spade king; that's seven. And by inference, when the club jack held in dummy, West could place declarer with the queen. That's nine points. And declarer needed to be holding five clubs for her bid. With the diamond king, that would give her twelve high card points with a five card club suit and she would have opened the bidding. So East must be holding the diamond king. So the diamond shift should have been marked. Had West laid down the diamond ace at that point and continued with a diamond in response to his partner's signal, the defense would have taken an extra trick. Unfortunately, that one extra trick would have made no difference in their matchpoint score. And declarer was not guiltless either. 3. After the club jack held, there were no more finesses in the suit. She was missing the king and the nine. If West held both of those cards, declarer had to lose a club. (If she led low from her hand, West would play the nine; that would force the ace and West would get his king. And if declarer led the queen, West would cover with the king forcing the ace and West would get his nine.) By leading the spade and giving up the lead, declarer simply gave the defense a chance to take two diamond tricks. Fortunately for declarer, West was asleep when that little tidbit fell into his lap. When the club jack held, declarer should have simply played the ace and hoped for the best. And the best would have materialized. Clubs were splitting. 4. But declarer made another mistake, as well. By taking the club finesse at trick two, she risked having it lose and the defense taking two diamond tricks. There was no need to take that risk. Declarer could read the heart position exactly. After East put up his king, West was marked with the jack. And he couldn't have just two hearts, otherwise he would have led the jack, top of a doubleton. So West was marked with three hearts and East five because he transferred. Therefore, it was perfectly safe to play on hearts immediately and take the diamond pitch. Declarer could then give up a diamond and ruff a diamond to get back into her hand for the club finesse.