AJ96 K962 52 942
- Q1054 AKQ84 AJ103		N		Q84 AJ73 J1073 Q6
	W		E
		S
		K107532 8 96 K875

West and North bid 3, East bid 2 and South 4. This gives a total of 12. Everyone should be looking for a set! West lead AC (why not AD ?) and followed up with the JC to South's King. South lead 8H to the 10H, 6H and JH. East lead AH cut by South with 2S. At trick 5, South lead 3S, North playing 9S won by East's QS. On the Diamond lead, East won 2 rounds and then lead 3C cut by West. West lead another diamond cut by South who lead 7S. North played the 6S and West won with his 8 !! The last three tricks were won by North- South. Result North South set !! You don't have to look far to see what went wrong. North would not play his high cards. The general rule is third in hand play high! At trick 5 if North plays AS and returns a spade, then E-W will be set! To make matters worse North wouldn't play high on trick 10. That allowed East to make all his spades. You may have noticed that North didn't play KH at trick 3 - Although it didn't matter, as a general rule, play high in third position. Lastly, when you partner leads spades at the first opportunity, assume he is doing it for a reason and lead spades back.

		Q1O7642 63 743 105
J AK7 Q852 KJ876		N		95 J10852 K10 AQ32
	W		E
		S
		AK83 Q94 AJ96 94

South bid 3 and West 2. North meant to bid 3, but pressed 8 by mistake! Now put yourself in East's position. You are over 100 points behind and need a good score. So you bid Doublenil ! Unfortunately there was nowhere to park the KD and the Doublenil is set. OK so the N-S 11 bid is also set and they score -110 but E-W score -176. To make matters worse E-W take 4 bags! The result turned North's mistake into a brilliant bid. OK he was just lucky. Imagine N-S have a score of 424 and E-W have a score of 456. If the bidding starts as above then a bid of 8 by North could be brilliant ! East would have a difficult decision. Nil would be sufficient if West made his 3 bid, but if the 3 bid was set, then Doublenil would be required. The deliberate overbid could be used as a very useful Spades weapon. The time would need picking very carefully.