Do not paint a complete picture

In general, when you know the right final contract, bid it immediately. Don’t beat around the bush, because interim bidding may give vital information to the defenders -- as happened in today’s deal. The trouble comes when you are not sure where to head. North’s two-club response as a passed hand was the Drury convention showing a maximum pass with at least three spades. Now South was in a quandary. If North had four or more hearts, that strain would probably be preferable to spades; however, South’s two-heart rebid gave East a key piece of information. Against four spades, West led a low diamond, and East won the first trick with his king. What did East do next? East hoped that South had only nine major-suit cards; as he had ducked the first trick, he clearly had at least two diamonds. Perhaps he was 5=4=2=2. So East bravely shifted immediately to a low club, West’s queen forcing out dummy’s ace. Now South had to lose a trick in each suit. This was a good result for East-West, but it wasn’t as great as they had anticipated. At other tables, where East returned a heart or a diamond at trick two, some declarers immediately drew two rounds of trumps. Then, when West gained the lead in hearts, he cashed the spade queen, leaving dummy with one trump for two heart losers, and declarer with only nine tricks. The right approach was to duck a heart as quickly as possible. South had to arrange to cash the diamond queen, discard the club eight on the diamond ace, cash the top trumps and crossruff home.