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How would you have played this contract after West leads a low spade, the nine appearing from East? The best idea is to hope that East holds three trumps (a 60 per cent prospect when spades are 5-1) and to lead a club at Trick 2. West wins the queen and delivers a spade ruff, but this causes no problems at all. East is ruffing from a natural trump winner. You ruff the second round of clubs and draw trumps in two rounds. You can then cash the ace of spades and lead the spade 10 for a ruffing finesse through West’s jack. Drawing two rounds of trumps at the beginning would have led to defeat. Suppose you next played the spade queen. East would refuse to ruff with his master trump. When you ducked a round of one of the minors, to establish a route to land, East would win and draw dummy’s last trump. With an unavoidable spade loser, you would be one down. What do you say now? Answer
Apart from the possibility that 2S will be an excellent contract your way, you will also shut out a 2H bid from North. A raise to 2D is not attractive after South’s INT has shown good values there. Awards: 2S-10, 2D-6, Pass-5, Double-3. — Knight Features |
With
North holding the king and queen in the spade suit, South would have
fared well by passing out the double. There was no reason to expect this
and South decided to leap all the way to game in hearts. 
If
you had a strong hand, you would announce this with an initial double.
Here your values are limited but you do hold a fair six-card major suit.
The best idea is to bid 2S, which is non-forcing over a INT
overcall. 