DECLARER PLAYS TWICE AS OFTEN

The declarer plays two cards to each trick, so he has twice the chance to make a mistake. Let's look at some of the things he should keep in mind.

Declarer's two most common trick-one errors are playing too quickly and proceeding without forming a plan. He should count his winners and losers, then select a strategy.

In this deceptively difficult deal, South is in three no-trump. After West leads the heart queen, how should declarer proceed?

That North hand is close between a game-invitation and a game-force. His chosen three-diamond rebid was invitational. In the old days, it was game-forcing; but with a powerful onesuiter, either make a strong jump shift on the first round or go via fourth suit forcing on round two, depending on your partnership agreement.

South has seven top tricks: one spade, two hearts, two diamonds and two clubs. The instinctive reaction is to duck a diamond, keeping communication with the dummy, but that is wrong. The other two tricks might come from either minor suit. And although a 3-2 diamond break is much more likely than a 3-3 club split, declarer can try both chances. He starts with dummy's two top diamonds. If the absentees divide 3-2, he concedes a diamond trick and, using the spade ace as the dummy entry to the diamond winners, ends with an overtrick. But when the diamonds split 4-1, South shifts to clubs, getting home since they are 3-3. This line wins if either diamonds are 3-2 or clubs are 3-3. These combine to produce a 79.2% chance of success.