[whereagles]

Have a look at this hand:

Scoring: IMP

West North East South
.................pass..pass
pass...1♣....pass...1♠
pass..pass....dbl...1NT
pass...2♠ (all pass)

---

West leads a high club. South wins in hand and, wishing to draw trumps quickly to stop the possible club ruff, plays a spade to the king. That holds, East playing the jack. Now South plays another trump off dummy and the roof falls in. East discards and West pulls out all the remaining trumps. Four diamonds follow, and declarer ends up 2 down.

South's mistake was not counting his losers. He could afford to lose 2 diamonds and 3 trumps, so all he needed to do was to ruff a heart in dummy and play on clubs, making 2 with ease. This gives up on the overtrick, but ensures +110.

This play is very simple, of course, but it's easy to miss if you don't keep your eyes on the ball

[ArcLight]

East made a take out double, presumably showing shortness in Spades.
Doesn't that imply that West has 3-4 Spades? So playing a spade to the K and then backwards into Wests hand doesn't seem like a good way to play the Spades.

[whereagles]

ArcLight, on May 3 2006, 01:08 PM, said:

East made a take out double, presumably showing shortness in Spades.
Doesn't that imply that West has 3-4 Spades? So playing a spade to the K and then backwards into Wests hand doesn't seem like a good way to play the Spades.

Indeed. But the point is one should resist the natural impulse to draw trumps with another spade because that's not necessary.

[Trumpace]

whereagles, on May 2 2006, 02:55 PM, said:

... all he needed to do was to ruff a heart in dummy and play on clubs, making 2 with ease. This gives up on the overtrick, but ensures +110.

This play is very simple, of course, but it's easy to miss if you don't keep your eyes on the ball

Don't agree.

Playing a club on your own could cost as good defence can then make 4 trumps and 2 diamonds.

Say you play AK of hearts and ruff and play a club.

West ruffs,leads a diamond to east, club ruff, diamond to east, club ruff plus A of spades that is the 6th trick for defence.

I think South played correctly by spade to K on the first trick. But South should now ruff a heart and revert to clubs.