| Make the critical decision as late as you can |
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Today's hand comes from the last round of the county league programme.
After East had opened 1NT, North/South did well to reach the game in spades.The redouble by West was a wriggle to show 5+ cards in an unspecified suit , which enabled East/West to wriggle to a safe part score position in diamonds.
East led the 2♦ which declarer won with the Ace. The spades must split kindly so after two rounds of spades East was on lead again. He now led the K♦ which was ruffed by declarer. The critical decision is to determine where the J♣ is. Declarer reasoned that East almost certainly had the A♣, which now would give him 12 known high card points for his opening bid. He decided immediately to play over to the K♣ and to take a finesse of the hoped for J♣ in West's hand. Down went his game.
Could declarer have done better?
Well there was little reason not to play on the hearts first. Declarer would then been able to cash four heart tricks, and importantly found out more about the distribution. After the fourth heart he would know that East had started with at least 2 spades and 3 hearts. He had led the 2♦ at trick 1 suggesting four cards in diamonds, so East must have 3 or 4 clubs depending on where the J♠ is. But East could have cashed the J♠ to draw a third round of trumps at trick 4 if he had it, and then exited with the K♦. This would have been a reasonable defence. The fact he didn't suggested he had not got the J♠, and that he probably had 4 cards in clubs. So over to Q♣ and then once in with a spade ruff from the next diamond, declarer could have taken the J♣ finesse through East with a reasonable amount of confidence.
Leaving the critical decision in the hand as late as possible allows you to pull together all of the clues, and will make you a much better declarer.
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