Two spades, three hearts, three diamonds and three clubs makes eleven tricks and the opponents have one in the bank. We will need a 3-3 split or the doubleton QJ . The only other chance is one opponent may have the only guard in both hearts and spades, in which case a simple squeeze will operate. Time to play. Don't forget to count the hearts!

We put in the 9 on the second diamond and when it is covered, win in hand. Next we cash three club tricks and discover the suit breaks 6/2 when RHO discards a spade on the third round. Now, we cash the remaining diamonds ending on the board. LHO follows to the third diamond. So we know 9 of LHO's original 13 cards. If he doesn't have exactly three hearts (making on a 3-3 split), we will need him to be 2-2 in the majors. RHO will then have the only guards in both majors. So we play a heart to the queen and a heart back to the Ace (LHO following) and cash the King. They don't split, RHO has them guarded. Nevertheless, our ten of spades is our twelfth trick. How did that happen? RHO had to guard the hearts, she could see that it would be fatal to discard a heart. So she discarded three spades, one on the clubs and two on the diamonds. Caught between a rock and a hard place, or simply squeezed. Bidding and making 6 was worth 19.5 of 20 matchpoints (sections combined).

Richard ducked the spade and when partner returned her fourth best spade, I won the Ace and returned the suit, still hoping partner had the K and another spade or two. Click show hands. As you can see, declarer had the King and won the trick.

Next he cashed his six club tricks. At trick nine, on the last club, holding four diamonds and the A♥, I still needed to discard. With the AKQ8♦ and the K♥ staring at me from the dummy Rich had the rest, no matter which card I threw. 3NT making 5 (460) was worth 6.5 on an 8 top. Nicely done Rich.

Post publication, Henry Meyer pointed out to me an improvement to the declarer's line of play.

Declarer can cash the AK♦ before the clubs,

• if the J drops, he can return to hand with the 10♦, back to the K, cash the Q♦ throwing the losing heart and return to hand to run the clubs.
• if the J does not drop, revert to the squeeze line, the Q♦ will serve as the entry to the dummy's threat cards.

All in all, still nicely played.

Well you are probably going to need the spade finesse, but first lets deal with the opening lead. Are we going to win it? Winning it seems best as a club shift would not be welcome. Before we decide where to win it, let's think about how we want to play the spades. Sure we want to take the finesse. But how? We could just lead towards the AQ♠. Or, since we can afford to lose a spade, we could cash the Ace before leading towards the Q♠. This will let us make even when North has a singleton K. Of course, we could just play a low spade from each hand first, planning on leading toward the AQ♠ next. That also will pick up the singleton offside K or make when South has the K. If we are going to play a small spade from each hand there is a strategic advantage to leading low away from the AQ♠, so win the K♥ and lead the 2♠. Click show hands. Remember, the opponents can't see into your hand. If North has the King of spades but not the J, he may rise with the K to return his partner's lead. This is even more likely when he holds Kx♠.

Bidding and making 3NT with the K♠ offside was worth 12 IMPS. Could you have ducked smoothly?

Holding Kxx Axxx AKQxx x, South can visualise an easy 5game opposite as little as QJx  singleton or void Jxxx(x)(x)  xxxx. Afterall, South's hearts may as well be AKQJ if they can all be ruffed in dummy for tricks.

5 bid and made was a cold top. As the auction develops try to visualize your partner's hand based on his bidding and that of the opponents. It will often be possible to count tricks during the auction. Don't take this too far when ascribing particular cards to partners' hands. Ascribe a perfect minimum not a maximum.

The play of this hand is easy without a trump lead. Simply lose a club to establish communication and then play on cross-ruff lines. If you were unlucky enough to get a diamond opening lead, you are in a bit of trouble as you do not have the entries to pull off a crossruff and if you develop the entry needed by losing a club they will lead another diamond.

The winning response to a diamond lead is to lose a club, if they return a diamond as expected killing the third heart ruff, answer by losing a spade. You now plan on winning 1, 2 ruffs, 5in hand and 3 (yes you need the 3-3 split) for 11 tricks.

Larry Griffey points out that opener's 5 bid may be practical but suggests that 3, bidding out the hand pattern is a better description and will lead to responder bidding the good 3NT contract.

There were 3 sections in the open game. 5 making 6 was worth 4.5, 6 and 8 points on an 8 top (These differences underscore why the VBBC scores across sections for club championship games). 3NT making 4 would have been worth 6, 8 and 8 points on the 8 top.

With nothing terribly appealing you might settle on the unbid suit and lead the 7 from your doubleton. However, listening to the auction might convince you that there is a better chance of going after a club ruff in partner's hand. Since you think partner may be ruffing you choose to lead your lowest club and hope if partner is short in the suit he can interpret your lead as suit preference for how to get back to your hand. (Hit show all hands) Today, partner doesn't ruff but his stiff A is just about as good. He returns a diamond and gets a club ruff to hold the unlucky South to only 420 and a 2 on a 17 top.

Here, South had a very flexible hand and wanted to investigate playing in three different strains at either game or slam level. Opener's jump rebid in response to NMF greatly simplified the auction. Only three pairs of 30 pairs bid and made slam.

With a different hand perhaps partner would have preferred spades. Say: Axx=Ax=KQxx=Jxxx, After 1-1-1NT-2, opener with three card spade support and a maximum will jump to 3, and the partnership will end in a 5 contract.

One more hand: xx=Axx=KTxx=Axxx: Now after 1-1-1NT-2, opener with no major support, no extra values and no extra diamond length will simply rebid 2NT over the 2 inquiry. Responder should choose to play 4. 

4 will make five with little more than a 4/3 split in spades, even with a 5/2 split 4 will likely make. 4H needs a 3/3 split or a doubleton jack to make 5 and will likely go down on a 5/1 split. The defense cashed two clubs after a club lead and forced a ruff with spade Ace, but it was all over. Declarer came to hand with a diamond, drew trumps in four rounds and could claim making 5. Alas hearts were in fact 3-3. They received 4.5 on an 8 top (6way tie, three pairs in 4 and 3 pairs in 4). Top was for 3NT making five, how 11 tricks were made, I have no idea, seems like you should take either 13 (no club lead, or  8 with a club lead. Even if the defense led a club and failed to unblock 3NT should make only 10 tricks. Some scores are a mystery.

Bidding and making 4 with an overtrick was worth 5, 6, 7.38 and 8 matchpoints respectively. By the way, that variability between sections is one good reason for matchpointing across the sections. Scoring across the field would be a 29 on a 35 top.

This is a much more useful treatment than weak jump shifts. A similarly useful agreement for similar reasons is playing 3/1 as an intermediate jump shift. Afterall who would want to respond 1NT to 1 holding something like "xx  xxx  Qx  AKQxxx" or "Axx  x  xxx  KQJxxx".

It is an important agreement that 5NT shows all the keycards. Your answer is the same either way, and it is not 5, you should answer 7. Why? Your partner has made a grand slam try opposite a known minimum single raise. He must have a great hand and you have a great source of tricks in your nearly solid 5 card diamond suit.

Click on show all hands. Bidding and making 7 was worth all the matchpoints.

Counting losers - to count losers, count the missing A, K and Q in each suit but only to the extent you have cards in the suit. A singleton missing the Ace is only one loser. A doubleton missing the AK is two losers and with three or more cards in a suit count one loser for each of any of the missing top three cards. This hand has one loser in each suit. The King in spades, the Queen in hearts, the Queen in diamonds, and the Ace in clubs. 

Quick tricks - A(x..) = 1 QT
                      K(x..) = .5 QT
                      AK = 2 QT
                      KQ = 1 QT
                      AQ = 1.5 QT
                     

As for the positive response, I'm all for 2 waiting when responder has no clear message to deliver, but here we have a good suit of our own and the values for a positive response, so the 3 response is appropriate.

So we start with a disgusting number of losers; three spade tricks, one diamond trick and two club tricks (I know we could ruff one, but to do that you have to lose one). Worse, getting rid of a loser in one suit won't directly help another suit.

The best lead for the opponents is a trump, giving you zip. Finish trump and lead a spade toward the dummy. Left hand opponent (LHO) must win or give up a spade trick and leave themselves subject to being thrownin with a spade to give up a minor suit trick also (and a ruff in the hand of the doubleton of the suit they choose to lead away from). Seeing that coming they decide to win the spade, cash another spade (underleading degenerates to the above ugly situation) and getting out a spade.

Now declarer runs five heart tricks, bringing us to the end of trick eight. What can LHO hold? LHO cannot keep only one card of either suit without giving up two tricks in that suit and the contract. So he must keep 3/2 one way or the other, but which way?

Say he keeps three diamonds and two clubs, then A and another sets up the 10 and forces LHO to lead away from the diamonds giving up the tenth trick. So, say he keeps two diamonds and three clubs instead, then A and another diamond sets up the 9 and forces LHO to break clubs giving up the tenth trick. Either way, declarer has 1 spade trick, 5 heart tricks, 2 diamond tricks and 2 club tricks. He loses only two spade tricks and one trick in the minor suit he throws LHO in with.

Many bid and made 4. I suspect some either got a minor suit lead or LHO made the mistake of ducking spades at one point or another. Could you find this line of play without seeing LHO hand? Perhaps, it feels like an endplay and squeeze sort of hand. It is easier if LHO has bid, as they had here. If you got no help and made it anyway, well done!

We hope partner has the K but with the spades not an immediate threat we definitely don't want a club continuation. We want a heart shift. All we can do is tell partner we don't want another club. Play the 4. (You didn't let the title lead you astray did you?)

Partner should reason that any spade trick you have coming will come to pass on its own. Declarer's heart losers, however, might go away on spades. A low heart shift will lead to down one, plus 50, and 5 matchpoints out of 8. If you play the ten, then the 4, partner will play you for a ruff leading to minus 110 and 0 matchpoints out of 8.

Bidding 3NT and making ten tricks was worth most of the matchpoints in all three sections.  

6 was a top in two sections and a shared top in the other. A few tried 6NT, deservedly down two. This hand figures to take more tricks as a heart or club dummy than in NT.

Two keys to this hand. First key, holdup at trick one. After winning the heart continuation, second key, realize that it will be better if hearts are 6/2 (4/4 seems unlikely and 5/3 means there is still communication in the suit). Further, if the K is in west's hand it better be singleton. Still, playing on clubs looks best. Play the A, when the K does not fall, you have to guess whether East has a doubleton or tripleton K. To play for it to be tripleton, you will need to lead the Q next. That's the winning play (if east has short hearts, he is more likely to be on three clubs than two), east can do no harm when he is in and the ten of clubs will provide an entry to the dummy to allow diamonds to be finessed once. One finesse is enough when the doubleton K follows under the Ace. That's 3 spade tricks, 1 heart trick, 3 club tricks and 3 diamond tricks. Making 4, and we survived the dark side of our gadget. 

I hope you puzzled for a while with this one before sneaking a peek. Congratulations to any who solved it.

South cannot lead a spade without giving up a trick. South cannot lead the Q without subjecting his partner to a subsequent finesse in that suit. South could lead a small club but that position will be covered later so...Say South leads the JD. Declarer wins this on dummy and crosses to hand with the J and leads a club, South cannot play the Q without once again exposing his partner to a finesse, so he plays low. (This is essentially the same position as if he led a low club). Dummy plays the K. Now Declarer runs hearts ending in his hand. South must find five discards in total on the heart plays, 2 spades and 2 diamonds are easy.

• Suppose he discards a third diamond next. Now declarer can play two round of diamonds ending on the dummy and finesse the 10, losing to South. South down to the KJ10 must lead a spade providing an extra spade trick and recovering an entry to the stranded A.
• So, suppose instead he discards a third spade next, therefore only North can guard the third round of spades. Now declarer can lose a spade trick with the goal of running a club spade squeeze against North. South can win the spade, and seeing that a diamond will do nothing can try to break up the squeeze.
  • He might try getting out the remaining club, but this can be won in hand and declarer plays winners, ending in his hand, to reduce his hand to the Q and the 10. The dummy comes down to the A6. North cannot hold the J and two spades.
  • He might try getting out the K, but now declarer wins the A in dummy and plays winners ending in the dummy reducing the West hand to the 6 and a small club. The declarer's hand comes down to the A10. North this time cannot hold two clubs and keep a spade winner.

So we see the hand record is right again, You can make 6NT from the East. You cannot make it from the West as spade lead torpedoes the contract.

Partner's lead is likely from 3 or 4 to an honor or possibly a singleton. You hope you can see 3 tricks, the AK and the A. One more trick will be needed if the contract is to be set. You have a singleton  and 1st round trump control so perhaps you can get a spade ruff. That will only be possible if you can get partner in. Then it hits you, if partner has the Q or a singleton, you can win the  lead, shift to the stiff , win the 1st round of trumps and underlead your A. If partner can somehow win the second round of the  suit, he will be able to work out that you need a  ruff. All is well this time, partner has the Q and paying attention, gives you your ruff.

The best bid is 4 showing 20 dummy points, heart support (4+) , and a singleton or void in clubs. This bid is called a splinter raise. If you do not play splinter bids, or fear that your partner will think this is gerber, then at least bid 4 hearts to show your 20 dummy points. Always remember to reevaluate as the auction progresses. You start with 17HCP but you should count your singleton as three additional points when partner shows a suit that you have 4 card support for. After 4, partner will love the North hand and drive to 6. Hearts break badly, but as long as declarer negotiates a club ruff before drawing too many rounds of trump the contract will come home.