I am travelling a lot this week so a short, sweet, but very instructional hand so please look at it really closely.

N/S Vul Dealer South

(Spades / Hearts / Diamonds / Clubs)

North: J63 / K106 / QJ1096 / A7

East: Q874 / J87 / K5 / 8532

South: K9 / A453 / 7543 / KQJ

West: A1052 / Q95 / A2 / 10962

The Bidding:

WEST / NORTH / EAST / SOUTH

- / - / - / 1D

Pass / 2D / Pass / 2NT

Pass / 3NT / All Pass

North’s 2D was inverted asking South for major suit stoppers — South’s 2NT showed stoppers in both majors and North now bid a pretty aggressive 3NT based on the good diamonds.

West led the spade 2, declarer played low from dummy and won East’s Queen with the King — the defence was now over. Declarer played on diamonds and the best East-West could do was to take two diamonds and two spades — nine tricks for declarer.

The mistake, of course, was at trick one. Based on the bidding and the lead East should know that South has a stopper (bidding) and a two card suit (lead — West is showing four spades). So South has either Ax or Kx and in either case playing the Queen gives declarer two tricks with the jack in dummy. But what if declarer has the Kx, as in this hand, and East plays low at trick one. Declarer wins the nine but the defence can now cash three spade tricks when in with the diamonds and defeat the contract.

Not easy, as we are used to ‘third hand high’, but take a good look at it as it will come up hundreds of times in your bridge playing life.