Hand of the week - 12th June 2026

I have changed format slightly and I will now put hand  at the top of the page.

There is nothing very special about this hand as you can easily reach 3NT, 4S or 4H and make your contract. What I did see at the table was some errors in playing the hand and at least 6 or 7 pairs went down.

First lets go through some bidding. East is dealer.

First option, playing 4 card majors will bid 1S, more on that bid later.

Second option, playing 5 card majors will bid 1C.

Lastly playing strong NT (15-17 hcp) will bid 1 NT.

Back to first option, 1S opener would normally show 5 card suit but this hand is 4333, it is OK to deviate from your system slightly and bid 1C waiting to see your partner’s response. S will not bid as no 5 card suit.

Over a 1C bid partner will bid 1H and it is your option to support H or bid 1NT. Either way you will end in game, 4H or 3NT.

For those that bid 1S your partner assuming a 5 card suit could go straight to 4S, particularly as they have AK.

Now I will discuss what I saw, W is declarer in 4H. D lead by N, won by AD in Dummy. lead of 4H towards to hand. As a result of this decision declarer must lose 2 heart tricks. S will duck first trick and K will be played and back to dummy for the Q, S ducks again and then J is played S will play A and 10 is top. How can you avoid losing 2 tricks. The correct play is, instead of crossing to K on first H trick, play Q then J in Dummy. Now when you cross to K south now has a decision to make play A, now 10 will fall under K when it is played. Now contract is secure as the only cards to worry about are QS and KC. The QS can be taken care of by playing KD before crossing to hand and discarding 4S. The only card to lose is KC when you try the  C finesse provided you play QC leaving 2 entries to Dummy with AC and 10C, enabling you ruff to losers in Dummy. I assume those that went down played Hs wrong way around.