Neither vulnerable. North deals.

September 14, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

NORTH

xK J 6

u8 5

wQ J 10 9 8 6 2

WEST EAST

xQ 10 7 5 2 x8 3

uQ 9 7 4 uK J 6

vJ 2 vQ 10 9 8 3

w7 3 wA 5 4

SOUTH

xA 9 4

uA 10 3 2

vA K 7 6 4

The bidding:

NORTH EAST SOUTH WEST

3w Pass 3NT Pass

Pass Pass

Opening lead: Five of x

It is human nature to hoard one’s assets. But there are times when economy just doesn’t pay.

We neither like North’s opening bid nor South’s response. It is wrong to pre-empt when more than half your strength is outside the trump suit. And we would not bid three no trump with a singleton high honor in the pre-emptor’s suit since North might not have a side entry to develop and run the long suit. A better shot is to raise to five clubs, and the trump filler and four fast tricks on the side could probably make the suit game laydown.

West led his fourth-best spade, declarer played low from dummy and captured East’s eight with the nine. The king of clubs was led an allowed to hold. With only one entry to dummy, the club suit withered on the vine and, when diamonds produced only two tricks, declarer could amass no more than seven — down two.

Declarer should have foreseen that the defender with the ace of clubs would hold it up for at least one round. In that event, declarer would need two entries to dummy to establish and run the suit, and those could only be in spades.

As is so often the case, once the malady is diagnosed, the cure becomes obvious. Declarer should win the first trick with the ace of spades and play the king of clubs. When that holds, declarer can nullify the good defense if West holds the queen of spades, quite likely from the opening lead and East’s play to the first trick. He continues with a spade to the jack and when that wins, it is the second entry to the table. Declarer leads clubs from dummy until a defender takes the ace and gets back with the king of spades to run the suit, making 12 tricks.