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RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION

Plays that are virtually automatic on the great majority of deals can be completely wrong in some situations. For this reason, declarer should make an effort not to play impulsively, no matter how automatic a play might seem to be.

Consider this case where South was in three no-trump and West led a spade. Declarer won East's eight with the nine and played a diamond to the jack, losing to the king.

East's spade return was taken by dummy's king, and South tried to reach his hand by leading a club to the queen. West won the queen with the king and returned a heart to dummy's king.

With no entry to his hand for another diamond lead toward dummy, declarer tried leading a low diamond from the table, hoping the ace was now singleton. But West won with the 10 and exited with a heart to dummy's ace. A diamond was conceded to the ace, whereupon West led a heart to East's queen to set the contract one trick, the defenders scoring three diamonds, a club and a heart.

Declarer's error may not be readily apparent, but that's because the mistake occurred on an "automatic" play. The contract was lost at trick three when South won East's spade return in dummy with the king. Instead, declarer should have taken the trick with his ace, even though this meant decapitating dummy's king!

This would have allowed South to lead a second diamond toward dummy, assuring the contract if West had the missing diamond honor and the suit divided 3-2, the most likely possibility. West could win the diamond on this trick or the next one, but with declarer's J-2 of spades acting as a stopper against West's Q-10-6, South could not be stopped from scoring four diamonds, two spades, two hearts and a club for nine tricks in all.