LEARNING CENTER

 . There's no reason to switch suits here. You won't win this trick, but if partner has an entry, you might be able to take a lot of tricks later in spades.

The full deal:

	Dummy  AK  Q873  1094  AJ104
Q10854  65  A82  982		You  962  J1094  Q53  K53
	J73  AK2  KJ76  Q76

. Here, partner has indicated that he doesn't like spades. You should get aggressive since declarer has a lot of club tricks coming.

The full deal:

	Q4  93 854  KQJ743
J10963  A642  Q92  6		852  KQ1087  1076  A5
	AK7  J5  AKJ3  10982

. Since dummy has a singleton, it's not likely that you'll want to continue. For that reason, your partner's card here is not attitude, but suit-preference. Here, he prefers a diamond to a club since he played a high heart. How do we know it's high? We can see all of the higher "spot" cards (2-10) so we know partner wants us to play the higher of the two remaining suits.

The full deal:

	DUMMY  QJ103  5  KJ104  KJ104
982  AK983  976  75		YOU  7  7642  AQ52  A982
	AK654  QJ10  83  Q63

If we don't switch to a diamond now, our diamond trick will go away on a club.

. Here partner's lead looks like he was trying to find you--it can't be fourth best. So partner probably has cards in the majors and maybe in diamonds. Playing a diamond must be right although it's a close call between the K and a low diamond (in case partner has Ax or Jx). On this hand, any diamond will work as long as you don't block the suit (so if you led the K, play a low diamond on the next trick).

The full deal

	DUMMY  KQ53  A5  743  10964
10842  Q763  A82  73		YOU  97  982  KQ95  A852
	AJ6  KJ104  J106  KQJ

. You should go back to spades. No, you won't win this trick, but everything else you do is likely to give away an extra trick. You have 14 points, and the opponents have bid to 3NT. How many points can partner have? Maybe a jack? It's too risky to be aggressive here. Make a passive spade exit and hope that declarer sees fit to go wrong somewhere.

	DUMMY  AQJ  Q982  A72 762
10742 73 643 9853		YOU  9863  AJ106  KQ5  A4
	K5 K54 J1098 KQJ10

. You want to make sure declarer can't ruff a heart in dummy. I see players get this wrong frequently--they cash the second heart first, but where, exactly is that heart trick going? When declarer may ruff losers in the short hand, it's a good time to start playing on trump. Here, a trump switch beats this contract.

	DUMMY 1086  74  K543  A952
K72  Q1096  62  K1087		YOU  4  AK53  J1098  QJ63
	AQJ953  J82  AQ7  4

. You want to continue to tap declarer's trumps. It's OK to allow the opponents to ruff in the hand with long trumps; generally those tricks belong to declarer anyway. If you switch suits, you help declarer keep control of the hand and breaking new suits is frequently helpful for declarer (it definitely helps him here).

The full deal:

\	Dummy  K8  K632  Q765 Q43
YOU  Q5  QJ104  K1093  J76		10762  A987  82  A95
	AJ943  5  AJ4  K1082