LEARNING CENTER

K. Don't lead 4th-best when you have a sequence; lead the top card.

J. Your partner's low card is discouraging. Duh. How could partner possibly have anything good in spades. This is one time you want to ignore your partner's opinion. You have good enough spades to continue the suit. Not only that, you want to knock out dummy's A, the entry to dummy's clubs. Why the J? From your lead, partner already knows you have the Q. This way he will know you started with KQJ--it gives maximum information. If you voted for the Q, I can live with that.

Let the K win the trick. Sure, you can win and cash spades (4 defensive tricks), but declarer will have transportation to dummy's clubs (he couldn't have started with only a singleton).

Win and cash spades. Partner gave you a count signal. He played his clubs up the line, so he started with 3 (with 2 he would have played hi-lo). Since partner had 3, you had 3 and dummy had 5, declarer started with 2. This is his last club now.

Don't let him win an undeserved trick in clubs.

When you win, you might as well take your spades.

Partner is throwing the top of a sequence and I should cash one more spade and then shift to diamonds.

The discard of an honor is the top of a sequence, so partner started with QJ10.

That means it is safe to play diamonds. But, first take your good spade.

Declarer has only 8 tricks and is down 1.

Click here to play Deal 3.