Before Drawing Trumps

The surprising lead to beat this contract is the ♣2. It prevents the player to reach the table in time. This is close to impossible, and only a complete analysis reveals it. It is usually bad to start under an Ace in trumps. 

My point here is the subsequent declarer play. Assume, the ♠Q is led. You like to discard hearts on your spades. You now might try a low trump towards ♣10. If that works, you can play the two top spades and discard hearts. East might trump the ♠Q, but you play loser on loser. West will no cash a heart winner, and continue with spades, which you ruff in the hand. We arrive in the following situation.

At that point, many players make the mistake to draw trumps. West will win and continue with another spade, and you are left with one trump, but must exit in diamonds. Instead, you need to establish the diamonds and continue diamonds while you still have a trump at the table to control a heart. This will work.

If you have a line of play which cannot work, it is good to look for other ways. This case is not easy to think through, but worth the effort.

♠ - ♥ - ♦ - ♣

Missed Slam

I am restarting the blog with hands where I made a mistake or where I saw a mistake. I won't post my numerous silly mistakes, only the ones where my thinking was too short or where I missed a better path.

This hand is a bit advanced for the intended audience of this blog, maybe. Moreover, my bid of 6NT on South is a bit too dangerous. In teams, I would definitely recommend 6♦ instead which looks like the safer contract. In case, you are wondering about 4♥, that is Roman Keycard ace asking with a suit above the agreed minor contract. I believe it is called Rednick, because the suits to ask with will always be red.

Why is this in a blog about Bridge mistakes? Well, many players did simply give up in 3NT with the North hand. However, South has shown 19 points and forced to game after a 1NT semi-forcing reply, showing 6-11 points in our 2/1 Game Forcing system. Note, that North is not allowed to respond 2♦. At that point, North has got to imagine hands from South such that a slam is possible. I think that is easy. South is almost sure to have good diamond support and the missing aces

We need a way to stop in NT below 6NT in the rare case that two aces are missing. South would answer one keycard with 4♠. If 4NT is now asking for queen in diamonds, we are lost. I think it should be played as natural.

The decision to go to 6NT is based on the good spade suit which can provide tricks. It could, however, be possible that there is only one stopper in hearts and a loser in diamonds. Bad luck then.

♠ - ♥ - ♦ - ♣