The Swiss Teams at the Year End in London was a bit of a struggle - we lost four of the first five matches but then won the last two to finish near halfway. I misplayed this hand, which is a good example of the adage ' when you have found a good play, look for a better one'.
West led the queen of spades to my ace and it looked like a text book hand where you need to knock out the opponents' entries in the right order. West was more likely to have long spades, so I played on hearts first to knock out his possible entry. East won the second round and continued spades - I ducked and won the third round, discarding a club from dummy. I now cashed the king of clubs, preparing to finesse the jack on the next round and lose the lead to East, the safe hand if West started with five spades.
It was bad news when West showed out but I still had Plan B. I crossed to the ace of clubs and cashed the winning hearts; if East held the king of diamonds he would have to come down to two clubs and two diamonds as his last four cards, and I could endplay him by playing ace and another diamond. All to no avail as West won the king of diamonds and I was one down.
Where I went wrong was to play the king of clubs. I should have led a low club and played the jack, which would have ensured three club tricks against any distribution while keeping West off lead.
With the new Bridgemates the results from all tables are now available on the internet for sad people to analyse. On this hand 3NT was played 70 times on a spade lead and was only made 21 times. Both declarers went off in the match between the teams that finished first and second. And Zia's team lost 800 in 7 clubs doubled! That makes me feel a bit better.
