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The auction was straightforward. After RHO opened a club, I overcalled a NT (15-18), and LHO doubled, telling his partner he thought I was going down. It was great hand evaluation; playing in 1NT I would be down two on a good day. My partner made the best of a dire situation by transferring me to hearts. I accepted the transfer and got to play it there without being doubled.
LHO led the ♠K, I won my ♠A and proceeded to play the deal as badly as possible. If you click through the deal, you will see that my failure to lead trumps resulted in the opponents getting four trump tricks. As the cards lie, if I lead trumps, they should only get two.
I can hope—not know but hope—to hold the opponents to only two heart tricks. If I cover either the ♥J or ♥Q with my king—there is a 75% chance of being able to do so— they will only make their ace and one more honor as our spot cards are better than theirs.
Looking at the whole deal, it is not an easy one to declare. While I want to draw trumps as soon as possible, I also need to set up two club tricks. Meanwhile the opponents have several ways to conduct their defense. Regardless of how well I play the deal, I have only seven likely tricks: 1 spade, 3 hearts in one way or another, 1 diamond and 2 clubs. The opponents, against competent declarer play, have five sure tricks (2 hearts, 2 diamonds, 1 club) and may make additional tricks in spades, clubs or even hearts, depending on how the play goes. My goal in fact is to go down no more than one since we are vulnerable. Indeed, I had better be sure we are down no more than one; down two is -200 on a part score deal.
One way to play the deal is to lead the ♣K after winning the opening lead. RHO wins her ace and leads a second club, setting up her partner for a club ruff. I win with my queen, ruff a spade in Dummy, and lead a heart.
Now RHO has a decision to make. Her best defense is to play low—if she rises with her ♥A and gives her partner a club ruff, I can now make the contract. When she plays low and I do as well, LHO wins his ♥J and then exits a low diamond. I win the diamond in my hand, ruff a spade in Dummy and lead another heart. RHO will rise with her ♥A, hoping (against hope) that she can score her ♥Q later. (She can’t.) She plays her ♦Q, which holds, and then her ♦J. LHO overtakes the ♦J and exits a high spade. I ruff in Dummy, draw the final round of trumps, and have to concede my last spade to LHO. If the play goes that way, I come to seven tricks for down one. And a top.
There are many ways to play this deal, which makes it complicated, but the point I want to emphasize is that I should have drawn trumps. By not doing so, the opponents managed to get four trump tricks. Big mistake.
On this deal, I lost my way because of sloppy thinking. I’ve had a lot of success over the past several months delaying the drawing of trump, but today delaying was wrong. I needed to play trumps early to prevent the opponents from getting more than the 2 trump tricks they had coming to them. When I failed to do so, I gave them the opportunity to crossruff in 2 side suits, and they took full advantage of my error, gaining 2 extra trump tricks.
Every time you declare, you must decide when to draw the opponents’ trumps. One common error is to delay drawing trumps because your suit has holes in it, only to discover that delaying the process turns out to be costly. If you decide to delay, make sure you have a good reason! On this board I didn’t.
One bidding observation: once my LHO doubled 1NT, advising partner that “it’s our hand”, my opponents should not allow me to play in an undoubled contract, i.e., they should either double 2♥ or bid on. Fortunately for them, I misplayed the deal, presenting them with a top rather than a bottom.
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