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Hand Analyses 24th January, 2007
North’s square 8-count is not enough for an invitation and neither of the E-W players have any reason to get involved. Against 3NT West leads a low Spade to the Ace, Declarer ducks the second round, then wins her K♠. She can now cross to the Q♦, lead a Heart to the King, then lead a Club towards the board, winding up with 8 tricks.
Last week we had a couple of boards where it paid to open 1NT holding a 5-card major. But not on this board. If South opens 1♥ instead, she’ll no doubt end up in 2♥, and will score 9 tricks. For example: Spade to the Ace Spade to Declarer’s King Three rounds of Diamonds, pitching a Spade Heart to the King Club towards the board, but West hops up with the Ace Club to Dummy’s Queen Heart to East’s Ace Club ruff If West is dozing during the defense and fails to play that A♣ then it will be 10 tricks, of course.
We don’t mind admitting that we have no idea whether it is better to pass 2♣ or bid 2♠. But be assured that we did not make our indecision lightly, there was much thought involved: - We’d expect North usually to have 6 Clubs in this situation, but there is no guarantee on that. - We can be sure that Partner has a maximum of 2 Spades, she has learned that it is important to “support with support”, especially so when there is a major involved. - Then again, our Spade suit is rather fine, the 5-2 or 5-1 fit does not rate to be a disaster. - However, Partner’s hand might not be so useful in Spades, all those little Clubs won’t be scoring tricks. - On the other hand, it is matchpoints, and majors score higher than minors … - … but they only score higher when the contract actually makes.
Alright, enough of that, make your own pick. If you chose 2♠ you will likely be the winner on this board. We’d guess that West will lead the Q♦ against that contract, and now it’s an easy matter for Declarer to score two Diamonds, a Diamond ruff, 4 trumps and the K♥ for 8 tricks. Nicely bid!
Next, suppose that you bid 2♠ and West found the unspeakably diabolical start of A♠ and another Spade. Rats! There goes the Diamond ruff in the short hand, and you are back to 7 tricks. Where’s the eighth? The only chance is a large slice of luck in the Diamond suit. After finishing trumps, you lead a Diamond towards the board … West must split his honors and you win the King, then run the Ten around to West’s other quack … now with the fall of the Nine from the East hand on the third round of the suit, the Eight sets up! Nicely played!
Finally, if South lets Partner play it in 2♣, she is destined to go down one, which does nothing to convince us that 2♠ is the “right” call.
South’s 10-point opening and North’s minimum 1NT almost talked E-W out of their game, but they finally stumbled into 3NT.
For the play in this one, please see Play Problem # 121.
South might have bid 1NT, suppressing the 4-card Spade suit because of the square hand, for more on that please see the Bidding Quiz.
Against 2♠, West might try a Heart opening lead, won by East’s King. Then a Heart to the Ace, Spade finesse to West’s Ace and the J♦ shift won by Declarer’s Ace. Because of the ruff threats, Declarer does best now to lay down the A♠, and when the Queen drops she is just a Diamond guess away from making 9 tricks.
Double Dummy Department Deep Finesse tells us that this contract can be held to 7 tricks, and here is the winning defense: J♦ opening lead, low from Dummy, won by the Ace Club to West’s Ace Heart shift to East’s King East cashes the K♦ Heart to Dummy’s Ace Spade to the Jack and West’s Ace Diamond ruff Heart ruff.
Against 4♠, East will lead a minor, probably the 9♦. West will win the A♦, and will conclude that Declarer is unlikely to have 5 Diamonds on this bidding, and that Partner’s Diamond lead is more likely to be top of a sequence. So, West will shift to the K♣, hoping to establish a Club trick. But all to no avail, it’s 11 tricks for Declarer on any defense.
Should West have got involved in the bidding? Please see the Bidding Quiz.
East’s 1♣ opening bid initially keeps South out of the auction, but she later competes up to 3♣, mercifully undoubled. It turns out to be one of those hands which is embarrassing for both sides after South goes down 3 tricks. South wonders “Why did I bid so much?” (though we don’t blame her, she needs next to nothing from Partner to make 8 or 9 tricks but did not even get that much), and E-W wonder why they did not double (it’s far from obvious that they should).
North has a most difficult hand to bid and in the featured auction she flouts conventional wisdom … after preempting with 4♥ she would normally be expected to keep quiet for the rest of the auction, but here she ends up taking another call. Not exactly kosher, perhaps, but she was in an awkward situation. For more on this fascinating hand, please see the Bidding Quiz.
Declarer makes 11 tricks in her Heart contract. If the defense leads the K♠, they will score a Club and a Spade … if West makes the unlikely lead of the A♣ he can give Partner a ruff, but that comes at the expense of the Spade trick, so it’s 11 tricks either way.
Trap for the Unwary Suppose that we are declaring some number of Hearts. West leads the K♠ which we win with the Ace. We can see that we will make 10 or 11 tricks, depending upon whether Hearts are 2-2 or 3-1. So, now we cash the AK♥ and let’s suppose that they split 3-1. Does that mean it’s 10 tricks? No, alas, we have just been unwary! We cannot get back to our hand to take our Diamond ruffs on the board. The opponents will get in before we can get back to our hand and they will cash their outstanding trump and deprive Dummy of one of its ruffs, holding us to 9 tricks. To avoid that ignominy we must ruff a Diamond at Trick Two, cross back to hand on a trump, and ruff another Diamond. It’s one of those simple plays that are sometimes overlooked in the heat of battle.
Perhaps that 3♠ limit raise was something of a stretch, the hand would be much more appealing if that singleton K♦ were in a longer suit. For example, put it in with the Hearts and 4♠ is a fine contract indeed. As it is, the A♣ must be on-side, and, with trumps 3-1, Declarer must somehow build a Heart trick. North will not have a stand-out lead, and might well try the T♥ … two Hearts are cashed by the defense, then a third round which Declarer ruffs high … trumps are drawn and the Club situation saves Declarer’s bacon.
Bergen Note Playing standard methods, we’d say that the East hand is something between a 2♠ bid and 3♠ bid, and that’s exactly what the Bergen constructive raise is. Playing Bergen raises, opposite a 1♥ or 1♠ opening bid, bids of 3♣ and 3♦ are used to show 4-card raises … one is a 4-card “constructive” raise (just below a limit raise, so East’s actual hand here would qualify) and the other a 4-card limit raise. Using the method, West would be borderline as to whether to go to game or not opposite a constructive raise.
We like the E-W auction (please see the Bidding Quiz), even though the final contract may be somewhat perilous. To see how East makes 3NT on a Spade lead, please see Play Problem # 122.
A most instructive auction! First of all, do you think that the East hand is too good for a 1NT opening? Some would say that it is, being a hand with a good 5-card suit and a maximum in terms of point count. We won’t argue the point, except to say that the hand also has some flaws … no Tens, no fillers of any kind as a matter of fact, and those unsupported major suit honors may not pull their full weight. We prefer a 1NT opening ourselves, others might prefer a 1♦ opening followed by a 2NT rebid.
West’s 3♥ was natural and forcing (but see System Note below), Responder typically has 4 Spades and at least 5 Hearts for this sequence. East is happy to play in Hearts, of course, and raises to 4♥. The question here is whether East should bid 4♣ on the way to 4♥, given the fact that he is super-maximum, just in case West has slam aspirations. All we can say here is that cue-bidding 4♣ here is a two-edged sword … it may well be helpful on some slam hands, but on the non-slam hands it may tip our hand to the opening leader. Take your pick on this one.
For a discussion on the auction after 4♥, please see the Bidding Quiz.
Thanks to the deplorable absence of the J♥ the final contract of 6♥ is only 64% with normal play, which is to hope for the drop of that J♥. If Declarer is a believer in the Singleton Theory, he’ll play for the opponents to have a singleton somewhere because his own side has a singleton, but even this dubious logic won’t help here … if he’s planning to finesse, he should play South for shortness by leading towards the Queen on the first round of the suit and that turns out to be the wrong way. Why play South for shortness rather than North? Because if the break is 4-0 that can only be handled when it is South that has the 4. Anyway, after leading towards the Queen (correct whether you are planning to finesse on the second round or not), the contract is doomed and it’s an unlucky down one.
System Note After the auction starts 1NT 2♣, 2♦, do you play Smolen? Using this gadget, the bids of 3♥ and 3♠ are reversed. Now, 3♠ says “I have 5+ Hearts and 4 Spades”. What’s the purpose of this switch? Simply to get the No Trump opener as Declarer if the hand belongs in Hearts.
3♠ was a bold effort by North, perhaps, and it works out quite well in practice. East has a fairly obvious Double, and now it’s a question of whether or not North can get out for down two and -300, beating the N-S pairs who unsuccessfully defended 3NT. The answer turns out to be “Yes” when the A♣ is onside, allowing North to score the necessary 7 tricks via 5 Spades, a Heart and a Club.
If West plays it in 3NT, he’ll have an easy route to 10 tricks. Or will he? Suppose that, in the auction, North keeps her Spades under wraps and makes the opening lead of the J♠, which is run around to Declarer’s Ace. Next comes a Diamond to the board and the losing Club finesse. A fiendish North will now continue with the T♠, putting Declarer’s feet to the fire. Should he play low from the board, playing South to have started with Kxx (blocking the suit) or Kx? Or should she hop up with the Queen playing for the actual layout? Not an easy choice! If Declarer guesses wrong (we suspect that we would), he’ll go down three and North will have a great story to tell her grandchildren. But, if Declarer guesses right, he’ll make 11 tricks and Grandma will get a big fat zero.
West’s hand here is similar to East’s back on Board 10 … 17 HCP’s and a 5-card Diamond suit. As before, the question is whether to open the hand 1NT, or whether to upgrade it by opening 1♦ and rebidding 2NT, ostensibly showing 18-19. Again, our own preference is not to upgrade the hand (it is rather quacky, don’t you think?), but we have no doubt that there will be dissenting voices on this one.
As it turns out, we’ll wish that we had upgraded the hand, because 3NT turns out to be a make. East has the perfect 8-count for us, what with his 3rd Diamond, the essential J♠, and those lovely Club tricks. Nonetheless, we remain unrepentant!
As South, would you have chimed in with a Spade bid over 1NT? Perhaps non-vulnerable it’s worth a try, but awfully dangerous to butt into the auction with no distribution when vulnerable. We’d stay out of it, but if South is made of more reckless stuff and does indeed jump into the fray, we’d expect East to make a speculative Double yielding a juicy +200.
North is obviously of the school that always opens on a hand with AK, A no matter how inexpressibly awful is the rest of her hand. Opposite a supposed opening bid, South almost has enough for game, but her hand deteriorates when West bids Clubs, so she settles for a part-score.
Nine tricks turns out to be the limit in Hearts … the defense takes 2 Clubs, a Spade and a Heart.
East’s 3♦ bid was preemptive, showing at least 5 Diamonds. Perhaps North should have bid game all on her own, she needs so little from Partner … for example, just the Q♣ and some luck in Spades would be enough for 10 tricks. In fact, 4♠ is probably the winning bid, it’s hard to see how the opponents can double, and down two undoubled for -100 will be a great result compared with the making Diamond part-score the other way.
In 4♦, 10 tricks are made easily enough when the Clubs are ruffed out, setting up a pitch in Dummy for the Heart loser.
What a ghastly bidding problem for East! 3♠ is probably as good a guess as any, and, in the featured auction, East was lucky that Partner did not bid 4♠ (which, on a good day, might even make). As it is, even 3♠ is too high when the Spades misbehave, and it looks like down 2 to us if South manages to get her Heart ruff.
We have to say that North’s Pass of 1♠ was a Professor Oddbid special, and it certainly does look odd at first sight, especially considering the atrocious trump quality. But the Professor reasoned that game was highly unlikely, that Spades would probably play better than 1NT thanks to a ruff or two in the short hand, and that 1♠ might well be the best chance of going plus on the board.
Playing in Spades, no fewer that 11 tricks can be made! West leads the K♣, won by the Ace, then a finesse of the Q♦, ruff a Diamond, Spade finesse, A♠ and a low Spade, and Declarer ends up losing just a Spade and a Heart. That’s fine when one is looking at all the cards, but it would be a crazy way to play the hand. Even if both finesses work, this line of play will go down if Spades are 4-3 and Clubs 5-3 … the defense will draw the 4th round of trumps and run its Clubs, scoring a total of 7 tricks.
So what is the best line when playing in a Spade part-score? We’d suggest the following, which turns out to be worth 8 tricks: K♣ opening lead, won by the Ace Finesse the Q♦ Lose a Heart Ruff a Club Ruff a Diamond Cash K♥ Ruff a Heart Now Declarer has 6 tricks and just exits with a Diamond which West must ruff. Whatever he returns allows Declarer to score her Q♠, regardless of the whereabouts of the King.
We’d expect most tables to be playing in 2♦ or 3♦ and that will be worth 9 tricks and the same +110 when Declarer loses 2 Spades, a Heart and a Diamond.
You know that you’ve probably lost the bidding battle when your side has half the points and a 9-card fit, and yet you end up defending at the two-level against the opponents’ 9-card fit. That’s what happened to N-S on this board. The way that the auction developed, the only chance that N-S had to find their Heart fit is for South to double 2♣, a bid which shows a good hand, presumably with Hearts. No doubt South wishes she had found that call, but it was far from guaranteed to succeed.
In a Spade contract, Declarer will likely take 9 tricks … South leads a Heart to the Ace, Heart ruff, low Spade, etc, etc. Declarer can be held to 8 tricks if South leads a Diamond on the go in order to develop a ruff for Partner … hardly likely on this auction.
If N-S somehow manage to find their Heart fit, they’ll score no fewer than 10 tricks thanks to the friendly layout, losing just a Heart, a Diamond and a Spade.
East does not have quite enough to double 1NT and soon finds himself on opening lead. If he dutifully leads Partner’s suit, West will jump up with the Ace and continue with the Q♦, advertising to one and all that he surely has the A♠. How so? Firstly, he would no doubt duck the Diamond if he had no fast entry, maintaining contact with Partner via the Diamond suit. Secondly, his play of the Q♦ (rather than, say, the Nine) might be construed as a suit preference signal, suggesting a high-ranking entry to his Diamonds if Partner should get in. If Declarer trusts one of these inferences he might win the second Diamond and exit a Diamond! Yes, indeed, there is the chance that, on the run of the Diamonds, East will be pseudo-squeezed. He must find two pitches and may not see the need to unprotect his black suit holdings and instead hang on to those small Hearts. Full marks to Declarer if she managed to wangle her contract in that fashion, but we’d expect most Declarers to be down one.
After Partner overcalls, how do you play the bid of a new suit? This particular East played 2♦ here as non-forcing, requiring him to jump to 3♦ to create a force. Figuring that a 3♦ bid would crowd the auction and make it hard to reach 3NT he decided to just up and bid the No Trump game.
South will surely deduce that the 3NT bid is based on long Diamonds and a Club stop, so might well lay down the K♥ at Trick One. This will bring forth a discouraging Six from North. Now what? South will reason that Declarer has the K♣, so a Club shift would be futile. What else but the dynamic shift to a Spade … the K♠ to be more precise, just in case Declarer has the singleton Queen. Declarer can duck one Spade (hoping that South started with Kx), but will then be forced to guess the Diamonds. Looking at the Diamond suit in isolation, the percentage play is to finesse, of course. Does the bidding suggest otherwise? Not significantly so, there appears to be sufficient room in either hand for the K♦. We fear that we might get this one wrong, in which case 3NT will be down 3. Well done if you guessed better. If you didn’t, then well done South for finding the right opening lead and shift, because leading a Club gives Declarer 9 tricks even if he misguesses the Diamond situation.
It turns out that West would have done better to bid 3♣ over 2♦, but we don’t think that would be a good call, the hand should be a tad stronger perhaps, and, anyway, the bid might well be going from a cozy 4-4 fit at the two-level to a perilous 6-1 fit at the 3-level.
The 4-3 Diamond fit turns out to be no picnic. South leads a Heart to Dummy’s Ace, then a Spade to the Ace, King and Queen (Dummy pitches a Heart and a Club), followed by a Heart ruff. Now, Declarer exits a Club … eventually Declarer will score two Diamond tricks, two Heart ruffs, three Spades, and a Heart for 8 tricks.
East has only 16 HCP’s, but that lovely distribution is enough to insist on game, which he did via a Splinter bid of 4♦.
E-W’s well-judged bidding has got them to a fine contract, but alas for them it turns out disastrously. Both major suits break horribly, and down three is about as good as Declarer can expect.
Here we have another Professor Oddbid special. We refer to that 2♦ bid by South, announcing Heart support (well, sort of) and a decent hand. Not a bad improvisation in the circumstances. But, as it happens, North is going nowhere with that flimsy overcall, and 3♦ is the final contract.
The defense must lead trumps early in the proceedings to prevent Declarer from scoring a 10th trick. The lead of the A♥ is immediately fatal to the defense, but a Spade or two, followed by a trump shift will hold Declarer to 9 tricks.
This deal is not the finest hour for the Law of Total Tricks! Both sides have 9-card fits and yet there are 10 tricks available in Hearts (must be played by South) and 11 tricks in Clubs (if by West). A whopping 3-trick discrepancy in the “The Law”! That’s pretty rare, so we should not be too critical of the featured protagonists when both sides missed their game contract. E-W were never getting to game, nor should they, it requires a small miracle. N-S might have got there if South had been a bit more optimistic, but there was the danger of a Spade ruff in the air, so settling for 3♥ was not unreasonable.
Against a Heart contract West might try an “alarm clock” lead, designed to wake Partner up to the possibility of a Spade ruff. He leads the Club Three, which is clearly not a 4th best lead (nor “3rd or 5th”, if that is the E-W style) if the bidding is to be believed. The oddness of the lead should wake up East and he will give Partner the Spade ruff (what else could the message be?) when in with the A♥. But it’s still 10 tricks for Declarer when the Q♣ is finessed at Trick One, and a Diamond loser goes on the second Club.
Against a Club contract, let’s say that North leads Partner’s Heart suit. Dummy wins, then it’s a Spade ruff, a Heart ruff, Diamond finesse, Heart ruff, another Diamond, after which Declarer concedes 2 Club tricks and makes the rest. Yes, a pretty fortunate route to 11 tricks, but you ain’t seen nothing yet! Suppose that, instead of a Heart opening lead, North lays down the A♣, planning to stop the ruffs on the board. She then continues with the Q♣, sacrificing her trump trick but stopping a ruff of the board and limiting Declarer to just one Dummy entry. Vicious defense, against which Declarer has a most pretty counter-measure. To see how to make 5♣ despite North’s unfriendly attack in Clubs, please see Play Problem # 123.
Nothing to the bidding but there are some subtleties in the play. East leads his 4th best Heart at which point it is impossible for the defense’s 4th Heart trick to be won by West. So, after the Hearts have been cashed, East has no good shift and will no doubt try a Diamond for want of better. Now, Declarer will finesse back and forth in Spades and Diamonds for 9 easy tricks.
Can the defense do better? Double dummy, no, there are always 9 tricks available. But suppose that West, after winning the third round of Hearts, cleverly finds the Club shift. This play is far from obvious, but now look at things from Declarer’s point of view. She could certainly jump up with the A♣ and still make 9 tricks but she has no way of knowing that the Spades and Diamonds are both so friendly. Playing for super-benign Spades and Diamonds is far more likely to result in 7 tricks than 9, so no doubt she’ll set her sights on 8 tricks, counting on 3 Clubs and luck in just one of the other suits (because of entries that suit will have to be Spades).
As North, would you have bid 2♦ or 2♠ at your second turn? For more on this please see the Bidding Quiz.
Conventional wisdom says that leading from Jxxx is dangerous and often blows a trick for the defense, but on this auction the Heart lead is the obvious choice regardless of that. Put yourself in the West seat as you defend 4♠ after that Heart lead. Declarer plays craftily plays low, hoping to create ambiguity for the defense, and West wins the Q♥, Declarer playing the Four. Now what? Will West know that another Heart is not cashing? If E-W are playing 4th best leads it won’t be at all obvious … that Five could be from J985, or equally well from J95 or J85. If E-W are playing 3rd and 5th leads, then East will lead the Eight, and West will be none the wiser … that lead could equally well be from J98 or from J985, or even from 85 (yes, Declarer could be 6-3-4-0). The bottom line is it won’t be obvious to West whether he should cash the A♥ (before it goes away on those menacing Clubs), or shift to a Diamond at Trick Two.
If West finds the Diamond shift, it’s down one, but playing the A♥ will let the contract make. Declarer ruffs, crosses to the K♣, and finesses the Spade Ten, losing to the King. East makes the spectacular play of the K♦, knocking out Dummy’s entry to the Clubs. Great play by East if he found that, it holds Declarer to 10 tricks instead of 11!
This is a board that is likely to be passed out at many tables, so we are indebted to our featured West for coming in with a light third-hand opening and spawning a most interesting auction, one which raises a host of issues. Here we go: - West’s 1♥: This bid is a matter of style, not everybody has the stomach for openings which are light and which are short a card in the bid suit and which are vulnerable to boot. We won’t argue the point except to say that proponents of the 1♥ bid will justify themselves with references to “lead-direction”, and the protection that they get from the Drury convention when they make these dubious major suit third-seat openings. - East’s 2♣: Yes, this is the aforementioned Drury convention, saying “As passed hands go, mine is not too shabby, and I also have support for your suit … please tell me if you have a real opening bid, or your normal collection of rubbish”. As is the case with many conventions, there are some variants to Drury, for which please follow our link. - South’s Dbl: South clearly intended this as showing Clubs though some play it as a take-out Double of the major. Either’s fine, the majority treatment is that it shows Clubs. - West’s 2♥: East’s Drury bid forced the auction to at least 2♥, and each partnership needs to have an agreement here. Is Pass the weak bid? Or do we show weakness by bidding directly to the level to which we are forced? We like the latter treatment, and so obviously did the featured West. Others prefer that Pass in these situations is always the weakest action. Take your pick.
There’s really not much to the play … it’s your classic “points divided, 9-card fits on either side, and 9 tricks for either side”. The Law of Total Tricks in action.
East has a very nice hand indeed, but it would take quite the perfecto from West for slam to be possible, so 4♠ is enough with the East hand. The alternative would have been a Fourth Suit Forcing bid of 2♥, followed by Spade support, but we really wouldn’t bother, slam is such a long-shot, why give the opponents extra information on the 99% of hands where the hand belongs in no more than game?
Against 4♠, we’d expect North to lead the A♥ (hoping to get a forcing defense going) or a Diamond, but either way Declarer can come to 10 tricks if he plays Spades correctly. Yes, in order to cater for the 4-1 break he must make sure that he can lead towards the Q9 on the third round of the suit.
West’s 3♥ was a “super-accept” of the Jacoby Transfer, showing 4-card support. There are quite a few different methods for super-accepting, for more on which please see the Bidding Quiz.
What a strange hand to analyze! Suppose that North makes a black suit lead … we could understand the Club, but not the Spade … either way, Declarer is handed an extra trick, and can draw trumps, pitch Diamonds from one hand or the other, after which he’ll lead towards the K♦ and when the Ace takes the King that will be 10 tricks.
It was most obliging of North to give us that extra black suit trick on her opening lead, but the bizarre thing is that not giving us that trick may be even worse for the defense! Say that North leads a low trump, then wins the trump return with the Ace, and exits a trump. No help for Declarer here! Can Declarer still make 10 tricks? Well, actually, he might even make 11! Look what happens … after the trumps have gone, a Diamond is led towards the King, and, if South plays low, then Declarer inserts the Eight, guaranteeing his contract. He gets a bonus when the Ace appears, giving him the necessary Diamond trick and also providing an 11th when North is end-played in the black suits!
Yes, South could have done better here. When the Diamond was led towards the closed hand, if she had inserted the Ten (not obvious) Declarer would have covered, ensuring the contract, but, as it happens, making just 10 tricks.
South’s 2♣ was New Minor Forcing, and when North denied a 3-card Heart holding South took a shot at 6NT. She could see that her side had at least 32 HCP’s which, in conjunction with the excellent controls and the 5-card Heart suit, seemed likely to give the slam a reasonable play. 12 tricks are easy enough with no chance for a 13th.
North showed admirable restraint by not doubling for a second time, there seemed little point if South could not take action over 1NT. West had a pretty good 2♠ bid, not quite good enough for 3♠ in our view.
Against some number of Spades, North leads the K♦ and Declarer can rack up 10 tricks by playing on Hearts right away, finessing the Jack for a Club pitch and then exiting a Diamond. North will be forced to win the trick and is unable to stop the Diamond ruff on the board.
That’s a pretty ugly 1NT opening, don’t you think? But it will be the choice at most tables, and we suppose that most Wests will lead a Heart against 3NT. Declarer will want to develop some red suit tricks first, because any off-side Kings will be into the safe hand (Declarer fears a Club shift). So, she’ll win the first Heart on the board with the Queen, and run the T♦, losing to the King. West can put Declarer to the test by shifting to a Spade, and now the play can go one of two ways: - Declarer plays a low Spade from the board, won by West’s King, and now a Club shift holds Declarer to just 9 tricks. - Declarer calls for Dummy’s Ace, and goes after the Hearts … West is in again, and can still not attack Clubs … 10 well-deserved tricks for Declarer.
Back to the bidding. Should East double 2♣ for the lead? It seems a bit much to us with such a rotten suit, but it might make the play interesting. N-S will arrive in the same 3NT, West will lead the K♣ won by the Ace (no point in ducking if West has a doubleton), and now Declarer does best to go after Spades first, knocking out East’s only possible entry before the Clubs are established. And, if East plays low on the first Spade, Declarer wins the Queen, and plays a Spade to the Jack cutting off East from the outside world once and for all. Nice play and 10 tricks!
South exercised well-judged restraint with her 18 HCP’s, selling out tamely to 1NT, which scores 8 tricks. However, suppose that South doubles 1NT, showing a good hand … North will bail out to 2♥, and that will likely be the final contract, mercifully undoubled. It looks as if South can score just 4 Hearts and one Diamond (there’s no entry for the finesse), for an unseemly down three. But South might like to try a little swindle here, if she trusts East’s bidding enough to place him with Jxxx of trumps … she innocently leads the Heart Eight, and West might see no reason to cover this with the Nine … in that case, the Eight forces East’s Jack, the Ten becomes an entry to the board for the Diamond finesse, and South escapes for a triumphant down two!
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