The bidding told him what to do

If you knew that the opponents were going to outbid you, often you would do best to pass throughout. Any positive bid helps declarer to place the cards. Of course, on the other side of the coin, good competitive bidding will sometimes push the opponents into the wrong contract.

In today’s deal, West regretted that South hadn’t been the dealer. If South had opened one no-trump, West would have passed, and three no-trump would surely have gone down.

Being in the balancing seat, South was too strong to overcall one notrump, which would have shown about 12-14 points.

South had six top tricks: one spade, two hearts and three diamonds. Two more tricks could be established in clubs. Of course, if diamonds were breaking 3-3, that would produce nine tricks. But if they were 4-2, should South play East for the spade king? No, because with only 12 high-card points missing, West must have that card for his opening bid.

South won the first trick with his heart king and played the club queen. West ducked this trick but returned the heart nine (first high, then low from a sequence) after taking the second club trick. Declarer won with the ace, cashed dummy’s three minorsuit winners and played a diamond to his queen.

West did the best he could, discarding the spade jack. He was trying to look like a man who had blanked his king from an original 2=5=2=4 distribution. However, South didn’t believe him. South exited with his last heart. West, after taking three tricks in that suit, had to lead away from the spade king-three into South’s ace-queen.