I covered the E-W hands and thought the point was how declarer should sequence plays to avert unblocks after spade, spade, trump exit. I had decided to win the trump ace and lead low to the diamond king.

BTW, if I held the West hand, my partner’s minors would surely have been 8432 and KJ8.

Hi Jim2,

Appreciate having you as a new pen pal.

In the high-level game, the key factors are:

1. Technique-keeping an eye (play) and ear (bidding)

open wide for evidence to determine how to proceed.

2. Card combinations-how to maximize advantages for the specific cards your partnership has been dealt.

3. Psychology-like warfare, the realization that your opponents (enemy) will order their plays to their best advantage trying to keep their codes (tracks) as unreadable as possible.

4. Rewards-also like warfare, never knowing whether anything your side can do will be helpful in achieving a positive ending, but still giving great effort.

5. Determination-The grit to lend oneself to the task every single hand, keeping in mind one’s relative experience and individual numeracy, and never forgetting active ethics and time restraints.

Here, evidence does begin to already point to declarers not having the 10 of diamonds, when he played the King , especially so if it was the most likely way for him to score up his contract.

(the dog who didn’t bark).

Some other readers will immediately cry out that the players they play with and against are very unpredictable and sometimes play badly so that, as a defender, one can never rely on their plays to be accurate.

The only advice I can give is that your task is to learn how to play against the best and most every other task will eventually, if not sooner, fall into line.

Never up, never in.

Good luck!