This hand is another one taken from the Wollstonecraft matchpoint pairs congress played on 16th November 2025.
Sometimes your side is lucky enough to have two fits and you need to decide which to play in. Board 23 here was an example. North South have a 5-3 spade fit and a 4-4 heart fit. Hands with a double fit usually play well anyway – but which suit would you prefer to play in?
On the actual layout of the cards on this particular hand it doesn’t matter as both contracts can only make 11 tricks (and in practice might only be 10 on a club lead). But suppose hearts had split 3-2 as they will 68% of the time?
Now it’s far better to play in hearts. That’s because after drawing trumps the long spades can be used to discard 2 club losers from the North hand. If spades were trumps there are no discards available on the hearts. This is a very common theme – a 4-4 fit in general is more powerful than a 5-3 one because it not only has the possibility of discards on a side suit it also means you can potentially ruff losers in either hand and draw trumps from the other. In a 5-3 fit you only gain a trick if you can ruff a loser with the 3 card trump holding.
For example in hearts on this hand you can ruff a diamond in the South hand then draw trumps ending in the North hand (which works if they are 3-2). Now you have 3 losers left in the North hand (1 diamond and 2 clubs). You can discard two of them on the long spades and make 12 tricks. Playing in spades that option is not available. Ruffing diamonds in the South hand is with long trumps that would win anyway and North’s 4333 shape means there are no ruffs available there.
Our opponents reached 4♥ albeit after a slightly strange auction. They bid 1♠-2♦-2♥-4♥. 2♦ wasn’t alerted and I’m not sure what it meant. It worked, however, as it enabled South to rebid his hearts to find that fit. Having reached that contract they were unlucky that hearts didn’t break. The North hand is a bit difficult after 1♠. One option is to show a limit raise with 3 card support if you have a bid specifically for that – but that suffers from the weakness that you might lock into a 5-3 spade fit without first exploring a better 4-4 heart fit. So I might have also invented a response although I’d tend to prefer 2♣ simply to leave more room (partner might rebid 2♦!)
Despite the 2♦ bid I still decided to lead a diamond as a club lead away from the ♣K10xx looked quite dangerous at matchpoint pairs (where you tend to want to be more passive and not give cheap tricks away). There was also another reason I chose to try a diamond (to do with the trumps – readers of last week’s column may remember)? See advanced section for the answer. Declarer won ♦A and immediately played 3 rounds of trumps leaving East with ♥J. At this point he claimed 12 tricks telling partner she could take her heart whenever she wanted and he was discarding his 2 club losers from dummy. What do you think of that claim? It’s wrong but can you see why? See advanced section for more details and discussion about claiming in general.
Another small point that’s not relevant to this particular hand but worth knowing is how would you play the spade suit in isolation? See advanced section for the solution.
Key points to note
A 4-4 fit is usually better to play in than a 5-3 fit. It has more flexibility about where you take ruffs, and if the 5-3 fit is a side suit you can discard losers on the long cards.
When you are short in trumps, your partner will have length. So that may also be a time to lead a long suit to try and force declarer to ruff and weaken his trumps.
Be careful when claiming. Not only should you be clear about your line but you should count your tricks – you may be able to discard some losers but that doesn’t always mean you have the rest of the tricks.
If someone claims against you and you aren’t sure, do not be afraid to challenge it – even experienced players make mistakes.
Even if you are correct in your claim, it is extremely rude to talk down to a less experienced opponent who may not see it as quickly as you.
In the endgame if declarer is thinking about what’s clearly a guess (frequently with a KJ holding) and you know it doesn’t matter which card he plays it’s polite to say so and save everyone time.
More advanced
The other reason for the diamond lead was I was following the principle about trying to force declarer. Why? Last week against 3♦ it was because the defender on lead had 4 diamonds. Here I only have 1 heart. But on the auction it’s almost certainly a 4-4 fit (neither opponent started with hearts, it was their 2nd suit). Hence it’s very likely that PARTNER has 4 hearts and forcing declarer to ruff could weaken his trumps with the same effect. Remember the defenders are a partnership so you want to try and consider things from a combined perspective.
The claim in 4♥ was wrong because, even though declarer can indeed discard the 2 club losers from dummy, that doesn’t mean he has 12 tricks. There’s only 1 trump remaining in each hand and declarer has ♣Axx himself. So he can ruff one of those losers but that’s all. Or another way of thinking about it is that even after discarding the clubs from North there are still two diamond losers left there and he can only ruff one of them. Discarding losers from one hand is all very well but you still have to count your tricks!
There’s an important lesson here about claiming in general though. My partner was quite inexperienced and wasn’t sure about the claim but was reluctant to challenge it. I’ve been around a lot longer(!) and did challenge it. But that’s a very common story. If you are not sure about a claim do not be afraid to ask what declarer is proposing to do or call the director if you are unsure. Even experienced players get it wrong!
Conversely if you are making a claim you should be clear what your line is. Especially against players you don’t know or that you know to be inexperienced. I tend to play through until one hand is demonstrably high but it can sometimes depend on the respective standard of the players.
Some players, unfortunately, can be quite rude and intimidating when claiming and give the impression their opponent is an idiot if he or she can’t see the claim. The player here didn’t do that at all, he had just miscounted his tricks and readily accepted he could only actually make 11. But, sadly, you do see that sort of behaviour around and it’s totally unacceptable.
Later in the same session a different claiming situation arose. I was in a 4♥ contract which ended up with dummy having ♦KJ and a losing club, declarer having a trump and 2 small diamonds. I needed 2 more tricks for the contract so I needed 1 diamond trick – hence I needed to guess who had ♦Q and ♦A (it’s irrelevant if they are both in the same hand). So I played a low diamond towards the ♦KJ, LHO played low and I started thinking. I was trying to reconstruct the bidding, the play to date, etc to see if I had any clues about who might have what. This took quite a while. Eventually I reckoned that, disappointingly, I didn’t have much to go on and I tried the ♦J. This lost to the ♦Q – and then RHO cashed the ♦A as well!
This is a situation amongst experienced players where it’s considered polite to say to declarer “it doesn’t matter” to save everyone time. It’s quite understandable that a novice player might not feel comfortable doing this as they may not be sure if it makes a difference. But for experienced players (as this RHO was) at this late stage of the hand it’s very clear what I was thinking about and it’s actually pretty rude to deliberately leave declarer to waste time and mental energy thinking about a problem that you know is insoluble.
Finally, returning to the spade suit, it’s just about managing entries. The solution is to play ♠K first then low to ♠A. If they do happen to split 4-1 with East having 4 then that shows up when West shows out. Now you are in the right hand to finesse against the remaining ♠Jx. Had you played ♠A, ♠K you’d still find out about the break but now you need another entry back to North to take the finesse. Sometimes you will need that entry for something else!
Julian Foster (many times NSW representative) ♣♦♥♠
