May 16, 2013
On May 14 in Estoril, Portugal, began the play of the traditional 28º Festival Internacional de Bridge de Estoril , considered the Grand Prix of Portugal. This year 21 teams are participating in the Teams Championship and after 6 rounds (a total of 9) the Fanha team (Ada Louro – João Fanha – Miguel Gonçalves – Mari Carmen Corral) is in the poll position. All the Results Click Here
In Round 6, the Fanha team faced the Pessoa team winning the match 24-12, the board 18 gave the Fanah team 12 IMPs and the match.
Board 18
After 3 Pass North opened with a 1
bid (alerted as «two or more cards»), South answered 1
(alerted «no majors»), North jumped to 2NT and South closed the bidding with a 3NT contract.
Soffia Pessoa lead from his fourth best spade card.
The declarer won with the Q and played the 
Q, West won with his A and returned the 10. Declarer won with his A, played the K, went to the dummy with a club to the Q and played a diamond. East won the trick with his jack but as he also had the K, there was nothing to do declarer had his 9 tricks.
Actually being North the declarer the only lead to defeat the contract is a heart … but who can blame East for not having chosen it …
At the other table the bidding was very active and placed declarer on the other side of the table, giving the defenders a lot more opportunities to defeat the contract …
After three pass North also opened 1 but Ada Louro in East used her turn to double (showing 10+ after her initial pass and cards in the majors) . South showed his diamonds and Joao Fanha showed his hearts, North made a cue bid to show his strength, Pina showed his second suit, Pereira followed with his spade stopper and finally South with his heart stopper closed the NT game.
Now the lead was from West, who chose his 10 and North was the one who tabled his cards, giving defenders all the information they needed to defeat the contract.
After the 10 lead, declarer played dummy’s J and Ada Louro won the trick with here K, watching the three hearts over the table continued with her 
A and Q…when both cards won their tricks, she played her 3.
Declarer won the heart return with his K, but he could do nothing; he had to lose A and the fourth heart….
No doubt this hand shows the importance of locating the declarer so that the weaker hand finish over the table and doing so not give the defense all the information they needed to develop the best defense.