Two Mistakes by H.Schenken & R. Frey

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The Norwalk Hour – 7 Nov 1966

In no trump contracts, declarer should hold up a stopper unless there is another suit that is even more dangerous. South missed a standard hold-up on this hand because the situation, was wrapped up in an unfamiliar guise.

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Opening lead: diamond suit2

Since South had passed originally, it was a fair gamble to bounce into two no trump over North’s one spade opening. It is true South had no club stop, but there were flaws in any alternate response—and the two no trump bid at least had the merit of giving no free information to EW. On the diamond opening declarer played low from dummy. Having won the queen. East realized there was no future in diamonds, so shifted to a small club, South’s nine drawing West’s queen.

Declarer won in dummy, cashed the spades and tested hearts, but when they failed to break he had only eight tricks. When he tried to establish a diamond, West pounced with the ace and the defense took the rest of the tricks with a club lead.

South had done two things wrong—he had made a bad guess and a bad play.

The bad guess was to duck the opening lead in dummy, had declarer gone up with the diamond king he would have been safe, for E-W could not have stopped him from building a second diamond trick. (If E-W attacked clubs, after South had already won a diamond, they would of present him with his ninth trick.)

Flow to play on the opening lead was sheer guesswork but South had no excuse for a later error—when he won East’s club return with the king. Had dummy held : A x instead of  K x x, declarer would probably have held UP the suit without hesitation. By ducking with the king, South could have frozen out East’s long clubs just as easily.