Control Your Entries As Declarer

Here's your hand, sitting south in third seat:

♠ K4

♥ 5

♦ 987642

♣ AT93

Partner opens 1H in first seat. Regardless of what system you play, Standard American or 2/1, you can only respond 1N here, even though you have a six card suit and a singleton.  You have 7 HCP, so you must bid. You're too weak to bid your deplorably bad diamond suit.

Partner reverses with 2S (which promises at least 17 HCP and 5-4 distribution, or 6-5 with opening hand values). You have to bid again. But the value of a reverse is that it promises at least 17 HCP, so some of the values you know for bids are now less. For instance, normally a second bid by responder of 2N promises 11-12 HCP. But since you know partner has at least 17 HCP instead of a maximum of 14 HCP with a normal response, your bid of 2N will now only need 8-9 HCP. Even though you only have 7 HCP, you do have a six card suit. And, anyway, you don't have any other response. You can't raise spades since partner probably only has 4 and you clearly can't raise hearts with a singleton. Really your only bid with this hand is 2N. If your diamonds were better, like AQxxxx, then you could bid 3D, which would generally be a drop dead bid that partner should pass.

But you do have clubs stopped, and your diamond suit, weak as it is, is long enough that it is stopped enough so that opponents shouldn't take more than three tricks in it, if that. So your only bid is 2N, even though you only have seven HCP. Partner with a huge hand containing 19 HCP bids 3N. Here's the four hand layout:

                 North

                 ♠ AJT6

                 ♥ KQT74

                 ♦ A3

                 ♣ KQ

West                           East

♠ 852                          ♠ Q973

♥ AJ92                         ♥ 863

♦ JT                             ♦ KQ5

♣ J862                         ♣ 754

                 South

                 ♠ K4

                 ♥ 5

                 ♦ 987642

                 ♣ AT93

Auction:

West          North         East  South

                 1H             P       1N

P               2S             P       2N

P               3N             All Pass

 

Opening Lead 2C.

Before I comment on declarer play, I want to say that even though it's standard to lead fourth from your longest suit as an opening lead against no-trump, leading low from a jack high four card suit is generally a destructive lead because the Jack will stop a suit and if you lead from it declarer often wins the trick with the 10. If the dummy in this hand had KQx instead of KQ tight, it's a perfect example of how a lead from Jxxx gives declarer a trick she wouldn't get otherwise. Playing low from dummy, she takes the trick with her Ten in her hand. She'd never get that trick if the lead from Jxxx isn't made.

As to declarer play, you count your tricks. You've got three club tricks (because the King Queen is tight on the board, you can't take the opening lead with your 10, so West's Jack will end up taking a trick if you try to take all three club tricks), one diamond trick, three spade tricks, and one or two heart tricks. But as the hearts actually lie, you're only going to take one heart trick because if you lead your singleton and West plays low, you have to lead the hearts from the board and you're doomed to lose to the ace and the Jack, at least.

So your only hope to make three no-trump on this hand is to hope for a 3-2 split in diamonds. It doesn't matter where the honors are. What is important, however, is that you keep two entries to your hand, because you have to lead diamonds three times to set up three diamond tricks, which means you have to get to your hand twice, and you only have two entries.

So you take the opening lead on the board with the Queen of clubs, lead the ace of diamonds and a low diamond, ridding the board of diamonds, which is won by East's Queen. Now there is only one diamond out. East returns a club to the singleton King on the board. But you must take this in your hand with the ace, even though you have to drop the singleton King on the board under it, because if you play low so that the king wins on the board, you only have one entry to your hand, the king of spades. Here's the layout at the point East leads his second club:

                 North

                 ♠ AJT6

                 ♥ KQT74

                 ♦

                 ♣ K

West                           East

♠ 852                          ♠ Q973

♥ AJ92                         ♥ 863

♦                                 ♦ K

♣ J86                           ♣ 75

                 South

                 ♠ K4

                 ♥ 5

                 ♦ 9876

                 ♣ AT9

If you use the king of spades to get to your hand to play another diamond to get the last diamond out, you can't get back to your hand to play the three good diamonds that you set up because you don't have another entry. 

So you have to play the ace and drop the king under it. You lead your third diamond. East takes it and returns a club. West wins the jack and returns a spade, which you win in your hand with the king over East's 9. You've made your contract; four diamonds, three clubs (your 9 held up for the last club trick), and two spades without ever touching dummy's beautiful hearts.

Reverse by Responder

Most good players play that when opening bidder "reverses," it shows 17 HCP and is forcing for one round. A reverse occurs when the opening bidder bids an unbid higher ranking suit at the two level than she bid at the one level, like opening 1 club and then bidding 2 hearts at her second bidding opportunity. If she opens 1 heart and then bids 2 clubs at the two level at her second bidding opportunity, it is not a reverse. But what does a reverse by responder show? Here's a hand that occurred recently:

Dealer East. Nobody vulnerable.

                        North

                        ♠ AK73

                        ♥ KJT52

                        ♦ QJ53

                        ♣ Void

West                                        East

♠ J96                                       ♠ 854

♥ Q7                                        ♥ A83

♦ AKT842                                 ♦ 96

♣ 32                                        ♣ JT764

                        South

                        ♠ QT2

                        ♥ 964

                        ♦ 7

                        ♣ AKQ985

Bidding:

West                North               East     South

                                              P          1C

1D                   1H                    P          2C

P                     2N                    P          3N

P                     P                      P

Opening Lead: 9D

Bidding: South has a decision. Should this be opened 1C or 3C? She only has 11 HCP, but she's got a terrific six card suit. If all she had were 6 clubs headed by the AKQ, she could open this 3C, but there are two things that argue against this. The first is that the queen of spades gives her 11 HCP, which is too many points to preempt, especially when you are in second seat and are preempting your partner. Second, she has not one, but two three card majors. Many players don't like to preempt in a minor when they hold a three card major because it makes it hard, certainly improbable, to find a 5-3 fit in that major if partner has five of them. Here, since she has three cards in both majors, it argues against a preempt, so she opened 1C.

North properly bids her 5 card heart suit. South rebids her clubs. This yells at partner, "I have a weak hand whose only feature is clubs." Here's where North misbid. First, she must understand that a negative double by her (instead of bidding 1 heart) would promise two four-card majors. Over 1C-1D overcall, a 1 heart response could show only four hearts because she could have, for instance, four hearts and two spades. In this instance, she cannot make a negative double, so when she bids 1 heart, South doesn't yet know whether she has four hearts or five or more hearts. So she has to make another bid to show that she has five hearts.

Not understanding the rules about reverses, she bids 2N. How wrong is this? Let me count the ways. First, it tells South that she has 3 clubs, implies that she has all the unbid suits stopped, and is asking if south's club suit is really good to go to 3N because they should have six club tricks.  Second, she's void in partner's strong suit. That's a huge weakness in no trump. For one thing she might not ever be able to get to dummy's long suit. Secondly, almost certainly she won't get six, or even five, tricks in the long suit. Third, when responder bids 2N in her second response to an opening bid of one of a suit shows 11-12 HCP, so this is a big underbid since she actually has 14 HCP. Fourth, she didn't show her five card suit. Her bid only promises four hearts, so how is her partner to know she actually has a five card heart suit?

What makes this bidding so bad is that she had two tailor-made bids. The first is 2D, which is called "new minor forcing," and shows five cards in the major suit she bid, hearts and a minimum of 9-10 HCP. It says nothing about the diamond suit.

The second bid she has is to reverse into 2 spades, since she has four of them. This is the preferable bid because it shows her strength. New minor forcing only shows a minimum of 10 HCP. A reverse by responder shows a full opening hand. The rules for responder to reverse are lighter than for opener. If responder reverses, it only shows an opening hand. Here, responder has a good 14 HCP and four spades. She should reverse and bid 2S, which shows partner a game-going hand and five hearts.

No matter which route she takes, New Minor Forcing or a reverse, both show 5 hearts, allowing south to support her by bidding 3H, thereby showing 3 hearts in her hand, and North can go to game in hearts, which makes. 3N can make, too, but it has to be carefully played. Still, with two distributional hands (North has a void and south has a singleton), this hand should be played in a suit, hearts.

Here's how the bidding should have gone:

West                North               East     South

                                               P       1C

1D                    1H                    P       2C

P                      2S                    P       3H

P                      4H                    P       P

P

To Pull or Not to Pull, That is the Question

One of the first and most basic rules of bridge is when you are declarer, "pull Trump as soon as possible." There are times, however, when you should not pull trump when playing the hand. Look at the following hand:

North Dealer

EW Vulnerable

                        North

                        ♠ A

                        ♥ 652

                        ♦ Q86432

                        ♣ 652

West                                        East

♠ K7                                        ♠ T98642

♥ 9874                                     ♥ AK

♦ 9                                           ♦ AJ5

♣ AKJT43                                  ♣ 98

                        South

                        ♠ QJ53

                        ♥ QJT3

                        ♦ KT7

                        ♣ Q7

Bidding:

West         North          East     South

                 P               1S        P

2C             P               2S        P

3H             P               3N        P

4S             P               P          P

Opening lead: KD

Bidding Commentary: You don't like to open a hand in a major suit lacking the top four cards in the suit, but, on the other hand, East has a 6 card major and 12 HCP. It's hard not to open that hand, so East opened 1S.

West's 2C bid showed at least 5 Clubs and 10 points. East's only call is to rebid his 6 card suit. West's second response of 3H normally shows hearts stopped, denies support in East's suit and asks East to go to 3N with diamonds stopped, which East did. West then correctly went to 4S since she did have two spades and did not have hearts stopped. East should have bid 3S after west showed he had 6 spades and a minimum hand. Had she done so. West would pass with a minimum hand and realizing that East probably didn't have 3 card support.

Play Commentary: South's lead of the King of diamonds was unorthodox without also having the Queen. East took the Ace of diamonds. If he pulls trump immediately, he is pretty much assured of losing three trump plus two diamonds. He has to ruff his two losing diamonds before pulling trump, utilizing the two trump on the board to trump diamonds, even though one of them is the king. (I have to digress here a bit. As the cards lie, the queen of diamonds is onside, so if North gets in, she will probably take it, making East's Jack good, holding the diamond loss to one, for down one. However, declarer has no reason to believe that South's opening lead wasn't a normal lead of top connecting honors. Who would lead a bare king? So declarer will play the hand thinking that the queen is on his left and thinking he has two sure diamond losers unless he ruffs them.)

When you are setting up a cross ruff, you should take your winning tricks immediately. Since you are leaving trump in the hands of your opponents, you don't want them sluffing cards in the suits in which you have winning cards while you are cross ruffing, and ruffing in when you try to take them. As you ruff, one of the opponents will run out of the suit and can get rid of cards in the suit you want to win with your aces and kings. So after East ruffs the 7 of diamonds on the board, he gets back to his hand with the king of hearts, ruffs the last diamond with the king on the board and gets back to his hand with the Ace of hearts.

Still avoiding trump, he plays to the Ace and King of Clubs, thereby taking all his winning tricks outside of the trump suit. At this point he has taken the Ace of diamonds, AK of Hearts, AK of Clubs (seeing the Queen fall from his LHO) and ruffed two diamonds on the board, so he has taken 7 tricks. He knows that South is out of clubs, so he ruffs a Heart for his eighth trick, breathing easier to discover that hearts broke. Now he's got 8 tricks. He needs two more and here's the final layout:

                        North

                        ♠ A

                        ♥

                        ♦ Q86

                        ♣ 6

West                                        East

♠                                              ♠ T9864

♥ 9                                           ♥

♦                                              ♦

♣ JT43                                      ♣

                        South

                        ♠ QJ53

                        ♥ Q

                        ♦

                        ♣

Now he can pull trump (having no choice since that's all he has in his hand), and leads the Ten. South plays low and North takes her singleton Ace. North leads the Queen of diamonds. East must trump with the six because he can't afford for South to win anything but the Queen or Jack. South takes the Jack and leads the Queen of hearts, allowing East to trump with the four, leaving him with the 9 and 8 of spades to South's Queen and five. East takes the last trick for his 10th, making the contract.

If East tries to pull trump before taking all his sure tricks and getting his two diamond ruffs, he will be down at least 1 and maybe 2.

How to bid in the direct seat over a weak 2

There's a lot in this column, so bear with me.

Your RHO opens 2 Spades. Here's your hand:

♠ K972

♥ KT32

♦ Q5

♣ A75

What's your call? Many experienced players, counting the points and seeing opening hand values, will take action by making a takeout double. When this occurred and the player with the actual hand doubled,  doubler's partner jumped to four diamonds (the jump showed at least 10 HCP), the only suit for which doubler did not really have support, so he passed. Here's the entire layout:

                 North

                 ♠ 6

                 ♥ QJ654

                 ♦ T953

                 ♣ J98

West                           East

♠ K972                        ♠ Q8

♥ KT32                        ♥ A8

♦ Q5                            ♦ AK842

♣ A75                          ♣ KQ32

                 South (Dealer)

                 ♠ AJT543

                 ♥ 97

                 ♦ J7

                 ♣ T64

EW didn't find their cold games because they didn't bid in a way that would allow them to bid over the weak 2, so the weak 2 did what it was created to do, squeezed the bidding range so opponents failed to communicate. There are many different methods of bidding in the direct seat over a weak 2, so I'm going to tell you the one I use and I think it's the best.

The key is that if your RHO opens a weak 2, you only make a call if you have extra values, which means at least 15 HCP. With less, like with a typical opening hand with 12-14 HCP, you pass.

This means that if the weak two opening is passed around to 4th seat, the player in the 4th seat must make some kind of call with at least 10 HCP. With 9 HCP or less, she passes. With 10 HCP she must take action to protect partner who may have passed a minimum opening hand.

So here, after South opens 2S, West must pass with his 12 HCP. Here's how the bidding should go:

West          North         East  South

                                         2S

P               P               Dbl    P

3H             P               4D*   P

5D             P               P       P

* at least 17 HCP

I have to digress here to discuss takeout doubles. Generally, if a player doubles an opponent's opening bid, she promises either 1) one unbid four card major with shape or near opening values and support for all three unbid suits, or 2) a big hand if she doubles and then bids her own suit. So an auction of 1H-Dbl-P-2C-P-2D would mean that the doubler had at least a five card diamond suit and at least 17 HCP.

But savvy players today play that a double in this instance and then a bid of new suit shows one of two hands, either the big hand referenced above, or a simple opening hand with one four card major and a five card minor. If partner bids the four card major, doubler will either pass or support the major, depending on the strength of his hand. If doubler bids a new minor suit, he's promising no more than an opening hand with five cards in the suit he bids.

The point of the double is to discover whether or not partner has the same four card major that doubler has. If he doesn't, then doubler bids his five card minor. He could still have the big hand, but he might not. You won't know unless you continue bidding. However, this bid does not absolutely promise at least 17 HCP.

In this hand, East's double of the major suit opening of 2S, and subsequent bid of her own suit after partner bid the other major, hearts, showed a hand of at least 17 HCP, so West, with at least 29 HCP points between them (his 12 and partner's 17), can go to 5D with only two diamonds, since one of them is the all-important queen.

What if the East and West hands had been reversed with West holding the 18 HCP hand:

                 North

                 ♠ 6

                 ♥ QJ654

                 ♦ T953

                 ♣ J98

West                           East

♠ Q8                            ♠ K972

♥ A8                            ♥ KT32

♦ AK842                       ♦ Q5

♣ KQ32                        ♣ A75

                 South (Dealer)

                 ♠ AJT543

                 ♥ 97

                 ♦ J7

                 ♣ T64

West          North         East  South

                                         2S

3D             P               3N     P

P               P              

West would bid 3D over South's weak 2S opening bid, showing extra values. Since East knows that West is showing extra values, and since East has four cards in South's suit, including the King, it's pretty much a no-brainer to bid 3N, since you have at least 27 HCP between you (West's minimum of 15 and your 12). This is the great value of only bidding in the direct seat if you have extra values.

Assuming South leads the Jack of Spades, Declarer takes it with the Queen in dummy. Declarer knows that his RHO is out of spades at this point because if South had six to make her weak 2, Declarer and dummy have six between them, leaving only one in North's hand, so she need not worry about losing a trick to North and having a spade led back through her King. She tries the diamonds and finds that North has four diamonds, so she leads the AKQ and then throws North in with a diamond, setting up her fifth diamond in dummy. Clubs split, so she gets four clubs, four diamonds, two hearts and one spade, making five.

Either way, this hand must be in game and using this technique ensures game being bid. One important proviso. This is a special method of dealing with this problem and you must have a clear understanding between you and your partner. It won't work if one person isn't playing the same system.

Re-evaluating your hand due to bidding

Here's your hand, sitting West as dealer

♠ Q9653

♥ 942

♦ 5432

♣ 7

Here's the auction

West                North               East     South

P                      2D*                 2H       3D

?                                             

* Weak

You've got 2 HCP, not a quick trick in sight. What do you do? The first thing is to think about the auction. North opened 2 Diamonds, so probably has six Diamonds. Your partner made a free bid over a weak two, which should show extra values. South made a simple raise to 3D, so probably has 3 diamonds. Your hand is looking much better. Because of your 4 small diamonds if North has 6 and South has 3, you know that your partner is almost certainly void in diamonds so will have no diamond losers. She will probably get a diamond lead, so will take the first trick. Your singleton club probably promises only one club loser (assuming opponents don't lead a trump). So she's got a great cross-ruff, utilizing your three small trump to ruff her club losers. She has to have values to make her bid. Given all that, your hand is worth a raise to 3 Hearts just to show her that you have three hearts.

Here's the entire layout:

                        North

                        ♠ A84

                        ♥ T7

                        ♦ KQJ876

                        ♣ 65

West                                        East

♠ Q9653                                   ♠ KT

♥ 942                                       ♥ KQJ53

♦ 5432                                     ♦ Void

♣ 7                                          ♣ KQJ843

                        South

                        ♠ J72

                        ♥ A86

                        ♦ AJ53

                        ♣ AT92

Here's the auction:

West                North               East     South

P                      2D*                 2H       3D

3H                     P                    4H       Dbl

P                       P                     P         

* weak

Opening lead Ace of Diamonds.

East trumped the Ace of diamonds, and led the King of Clubs, which South took. You have to get rid of the Ace of clubs before you pull trump. South took the Ace and, seeing the board now void in clubs and three small trump, led the ace of trump and a small trump, trying to cut down dummy's ruffing power. East then ruffed a small club, led to the King of Spades, pulled trump and ran the Clubs, surrendering a spade at the end, making 4 doubled. This was a team game and at the other table, NS was in 3 no trump, making 9 tricks off the top.

Bidding commentary: North's bid of a weak 2 is questionable because she's got an outside Ace. It's generally a bad idea to open a weak 2 with an outside Ace. When you open a weak 2, most of your HCP should be in your suit. An outside Ace gives you better defensive values than partner might anticipate. Because she has a six card suit, this hand could be opened 1D, due to the two doubletons, the strong diamond suit and the outside ace. However, even with a 2 diamond opening 3 no trump can still be reached. Since South knows North has six diamonds, he also knows they have six diamond tricks off the top since he has 4 diamonds to the ace jack. All he needs is to know about spades, so he should bid 2N, asking for a feature. When North answers 3S, showing the ace or king of spades, South can easily bid 3N. Regardless, the key to the hand is West's bid of 3H. No matter what NS have, East should always go to 4H after West's free bid.

Normally, you should bid your longest suit first, but here East was right to overcall Hearts, looking for a major suit fit. She can always bid her Clubs later, although if she overcalls 3 Clubs first and south bids 3D, West will pass with a singleton in her club suit, as will North. If East then bids 3H, West is unlikely to go to four.

Play commentary. 4H cannot be beaten as long as East trumps a club after getting rid of the Ace before pulling trump. If she doesn't trump a club, South's Ten will hold up and keep East from running the Clubs, which she must do to make the contract. If NS is in 3N, it is cold, running 9 tricks off the top, 6 diamonds and the other three aces.

Michaels and Unusual No Trump

If there is one bid that is almost universally misunderstood and misused by experienced players, it's the conventional bid that shows two unbid five card suits, represented by Michaels and the Unusual No Trump. Michaels is a cue bid of openers' one level bid to show either both majors if the opening bid is a minor or the other major and an undesignated minor if the opening bid is a major. The Unusual No Trump is a conventional bid of a jump to two no trump over an opening one level bid that shows either both minors or the two lower unbid suits.

The problem arises because these players have heard from some "expert" that some people play these only with "good-bad" hands and with intermediate range hands they bid the two suits individually. There are two problems with this statement.

The first is that the "expert" never defines what a "bad" hand is. They tell you that the intermediate range is probably 10-16 HCP, but don't define a range for the "bad" hand. As a result, the "expert's" trusting acolyte defines bad as anything under 10 HCP.

The second is that it defies reason. Why would you want to force your partner to bid at the three level (in the case of unusual no trump) when you have a weak hand and she might be forced to bid a two card suit (or in rare circumstances a one card suit)?

This happened to me recently in a two table social team game. Here's my hand:

♠ QJ

♥ 5

♦ T9754

♣ KT864

The bidding went:

West          North         East  South (me)

                                           P

1D             2D             3C     Dbl

3D             P               P       Dbl

P               P               P

I'm salivating. We're going to kill this hand. My partner has the majors and I have the minors. At a minimum, I should get three tricks, two diamonds and a club and my partner should have at least two quick tricks to make her bid.  Well, to make a long painful story mercifully short, we were the ones who got killed. My partner had four points, one queen and two jacks, and couldn't take a trick. I got my three tricks, but that meant they made their bid with an overtrick, doubled.

When the round was over, the player at the other table who had my partner's hand, a more experienced player than my partner, said that she bid it the same way. Since her partner was not an expert, the final diamond contract wasn't doubled (one of the reasons experts do well is that they love to double partscores).

The reason they both bid Michaels? Because they had heard that it should be used with "good and bad" hands. Well, they certainly had a "bad" hand. But because the "expert" never defines the "bad" hand, people think that any 13 cards that are 5-5 in shape will suffice.

So, clearly, people don't understand this dichotomy and it's time to explain it. First, it makes no sense to only use it with good or bad hands and to bid intermediate hands by bidding the suit. Second, if you use these conventions, use them all the time in accordance with the following rules:

For Unusual No Trump:

Not Vulnerable: At least 5-5 in your two suits, not less than 9 HCP and two quick tricks in your suits, and if at the bottom of your range, you must have good suits. You may have any upper range of points, but this is the minimum.

Vulnerable: At least 5-5 in your two suits, two quick tricks, and generally, not less than 12 HCP; if both of your suits are good, however, you may do it with 11 HCP.

For Michaels:

Not vulnerable. At least 5-5 in your two suits and 8 HCP with the points all in your suits, if making the bid with the minimum.

Vulnerable. At least 5-5 in your two suits and 10 useful HCP, meaning at least two quick tricks, and they should be in your suits.

Let me explain why discipline is important. First, often when you have a two suited hand, your partner holds the other two suits, so you might find yourself in a defensive position where you can double for penalty, as I was. You must ensure that your partner can trust your bid and vice-versa.

Second, since you are forcing your partner to bid at a higher level with unknown shape and values, you are risking a bad contract that might be doubled, so you must have the values promised above.

Planning the Play at the Outset

Today's hand deals with planning at the outset. Here's your hand, sitting West:

♠ 3

♥ QJT98654

♦ A7

♣ A3

Here's the auction:

West          North         East  South

                                  P       P

4H             Dbl             P       P

P

Opening lead: Ace of Spades

The dummy comes down and here are your two hands:

West                   East

♠ 3                      ♠ 652

♥ QJT98654          ♥ A32

♦ A7                    ♦ Q54

♣ A3                   ♣ 9842

Before you play you must analyze your cards. How are you going to make this hand? It looks as if you must lose four tricks, one Spade, one Diamond, and one Club. And since South sat for the double, she probably has the King of trump. There's no way to finesse it, so you have to lose that, too. How can you make it?

The answer is that you must play North for the King of Diamonds, and you must set it up before drawing trump. Why? Two reasons. You have to lose a Club and you need to keep the Ace before you set up a way to get rid of your three of clubs. The second reason is that if you lead to the Ace of Hearts immediately, you have no entry to the board, which is where you are hoping to get a trick if you can set up the Queen of Diamonds.

So you trump the second spade in your hand and lead immediately to your Queen of diamonds on the board. If South has the King, which is unlikely since North doubled, showing the good hand, you are toast. But if North goes up and takes the King, no matter what North leads back, you can make the hand. If he leads a Club, you take the Ace, take the Ace of Diamonds in your hand. Lead to the Ace of Hearts. Play the Queen of Diamonds and sluff your three of Clubs. You lose the King of Hearts, but you only lost three tricks, making four, doubled.

Here's the four hand layout:

                     North

                 ♠ AKT84

                 ♥ Void

                 ♦ KT9832

                 ♣ K7

West                           East

♠ 3                              ♠ 652

♥ QJT98654                  ♥ A32

♦ A7                            ♦ Q54

♣ A3                           ♣ 9842

                 South

                 ♠ QJ97

                 ♥ K7

                 ♦ J6

                 ♣ QJT65

I'll close with a bidding commentary. When a player opens 4 hearts, a double by an opponent is for takeout. If a player opens 4 Spades, a double is penalty. If an opponent wants to make a takeout bid over a 4 Spade opener, he bids 4 NT. That asks partner to bid her longest suit. Here, after the hand was played, South asked me if she was correct to sit for the double and I explained her partner was asking her to bid. What should she have bid? Although a double often asks for the longest suit, it also generally implies four cards in the unbid major, so I would bid 4 Spades with her hand, even though she has 5 Clubs. If Partner doesn't have 4 spades, she will correct to her long suit. Here, NS is cold for 4 Spades. Actually they can make an overtrick, losing only the two minor suit Aces if they play the Diamonds correctly.