[pclayton]

Scoring: IMP

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Here's a hand I commented on Vugraph tonight and it demonstrates the danger of being overactive on defense.

South (Villas-Boas) declared 3N from the South side. He won the club lead with the Q and put the ♦J on the table. West won the queen and - perhaps overreacted to dummy's heart suit and shifted to the ♠Q. Curtains!

A simple count of declarer's tricks would have helped. 6♥'s and 2♣'s (from the lead). While declarer can set up a diamond trick by force, he is one entry light. Accordingly, passive defense is called for, and West should shift to a heart at T3 giving nothing away.

Still, the declarer can prevail in the endgame. After 6 hearts the position is:

Scoring: IMP

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Declarer exits the board with the K♠ and can't be prevented from taking a 9th trick.

[FrancesHinden]

I think you are being very hard on West.

If declarer had the H10 (or a third heart - we don't know the auction) the SQ switch is needed now to take 5 tricks, either when partner has a doubleton club or the S9.

West may not have worked out exactly what the end position was going to be, but he could certainly see that there was likely to be an endplay of some sort coming. It is pretty clear that partner had to have the AJ of spades, so West had the choice of
i) playing partner for the S9 or a doubleton club
ii) going passive and hoping the contract didn't have nine tricks, and hoping declarer misread the end position.

The first of these doesn't seem unreasonable.