Reduce your errors for good results.
Bridge Column for October 24, 2003, Harvey Bernstein
Neither side vulnerable.  North deals.
                              North
                              S: A 4 3 2          
                              H: Q 9 7 6 4 2  
                              D: 5           
                              C: A 3     
            West                             East
            S: 10 9 8 7                      S: J 6 5   
            H: J 10 8                        H: 5 3        
            D: A 7 4                         D: Q 9 8             
            C: 8 7 5                         C: J 10 9 6 4  
                              South                         
                              S: K Q  
                              H: A K        
                              D: K J 10 6 3 2
                              C: K Q 2    
          The Bidding:  
                  North    East    South    West                  
                   1H      Pass     2D      Pass
                   2H      Pass     4NT     Pass
                   5S      Pass     6NT     Pass
                   Pass    Pass
     The player in the North seat was a true believer in the rule
of twenty.  This rule refers to opening the bidding with
distributional hands.  If you add your high card points to the
number of cards in your two longest suits, and the total is
twenty or more, you should open the bidding.
     Well, South had twenty-one of his own and that was just in
high card points, so it was "off to the races".  Four no-trump
was Key-Card Blackwood and five spades showed two aces and the
queen of hearts.  South selected six no-trump as the final
contract to guard against an opening diamond lead coming through
the king-jack.
     West led the ten of spades and South examined the layout. 
He had nine immediate tricks and three more if the hearts
behaved. The diamond suit might provide one trick, but not much
else.  It looked as if the heart suit was the only hope.  
     Declarer won the opening lead with the king and cashed the
ace and king of hearts.  Both defenders followed.  Thrilled with
the fall of the hearts, declarer placed a small club on the table
and called for the ace from dummy.  The queen of hearts cleared
that suit and as he was cashing the hearts, declarer realized
that he was going down.
     In his haste to get to the dummy to run the hearts he had
forgotten to play the queen of spades first, and there was now no
way to enjoy both the queen and the ace of that suit.  
     Bridge is a game of mistakes.  Everyone makes some number of
mistakes.  As your game improves, your mistakes become fewer and
less costly, but rarely less embarrassing.  Whenever it looks as
though you have the situation well in hand, stop and take a
moment to make sure you don't embarrass yourself.
_________________________________________________
Bernstein is a free-lance writer in Solon.