Most errors in the play of the cards can be attributed to laziness rather than ignorance or limited ability. This observation applies equally to the offense and the defense.

Today’s deal illustrates the type of error that can easily be avoided with the proper mental approach. West led the king of spades and continued with the queen after East signaled with the seven. West then shifted to a diamond. Declarer won with the ace and conceded a trump to East’s ace. South later took a successful club finesse, and the contract was home.

Nothing startling occurred during the play, and it might appear that the par result was achieved by both sides. But closer examination reveals that the contract should have been defeated.

The culprit was East, who missed a golden opportunity at trick one when he should have overtaken West’s king of spades with the ace and shifted to his singleton club.

From then on, declarer would have been fighting a losing battle. Whenever he led a trump, East would grab the ace, lead a spade to West and obtain a club ruff to defeat the contract.

It would not have been difficult for West to read the situation if East had done his part at tricks one and two. The combination of the overtake and the club return would have made the defense crystal clear.

For East’s part, finding the winning defense should be easy if he considers the hand as a whole and does not play mechanically to the first trick. He knows from the opening lead that his partner has the K-Q of spades, so unless South has a singleton spade, East can count three defensive tricks. The search for a fourth is ended as soon as it occurs to him that a club ruff can upset declarer’s apple cart.

Tomorrow: Double-dummy problem.