Wednesday 14 February

Playing with Adrianne in a Howell at St Andrew came in the middle with 51%.

Bob opened South 1S, Ian bid 1NT, Bob 2C and Ian 2H.  Bob showed his points with 2NT and Ian passed.
My singleton diamond looked like the only logical choice of lead and that worked well, Ian running it to his 10.  Now he runs JS (the 7S would have guaranteed 8 tricks, but that is Double Dummy) to Adrianne's Q and she returns JH.
Ian comes back to hand by overtaking QD and plays a spade to the 10 to get the bad news.  He now tried a club to the 9 but we have 6 tricks now for down 1.  They were making 3NT at the other tables.  A black suit lead would certainly have given Declarer a much easier ride.

South is in 3NT and Adrianne leads KS so Declarer has to run his tricks in hearts and clubs to make his contract.
After winning the second spade he crosses to AC and back to AH.  Now a club again and which card should he play?
It is a difficult concept to understand but once I play JC (or QC) it is twice as likely that my partner has the other honour.
So declarer should finesse the 8C.  Unfortunately for us Declarer didn't know the principle of restricted choice, rose with the KC and made 10 tricks.

Martin opened South 2S and Adrianne bid a Lebensohl 2NT.  Alyson passed and I bid 3C.  Adrianne bid 3H and now Alyson bid 4S, I bid 5H passed out.  Alyson led a spade and Adrianne could discard a club to make 11 tricks.
It didn't matter if the defence start with AK of clubs, one down would still have been a top for us as spades makes 10 tricks.