Two leading players were left feeling a little aggrieved on Board 5 of the second qualifying session Friday evening.

Board 5. Dealer North. NS Game J 10 5 4 3 K 10 A Q 7 A 6 4 K 9 6 Q 2 Q 3 9 8 7 5 4 K 5 4 2 J 10 9 8 K Q 9 3 10 8 A 8 7 A J 6 2 6 3 J 7 5 2 West North East South Mass Nriend 1 Pass 2NT Pass 4 All Pass

2NT was a spade raise and this brief auction left declarer is a similar contract to that found by most N/S pairs. Unfortunately for the Netherlands' Anton Maas, the East at his table looked beyond the "obvious" Jack of diamonds lead and chose instead the devilish Ten of Clubs.

Maas ducked the first club and won the second. Seeing that to play a spade now would only win if East had either a singleton honour or both King and Queen, he chose a heart finesse in an attempt to dispose of his club loser. He cashed the King and overtook the Ten of hearts with dummy's Jack. When that lost to the Queen, the roof fell in - West cashed a high club and led a fourth round, overruffed with the Queen as dummy had to follow suit. The defence still had the King of spades to come.

Four spades going one down was not an uncommon result, but any more was a disaster. Clearly Maas' line is correct at IMPs. At matchpoints it is surely much closer, although if you expect most pairs to make ten tricks on a more favourable lead then settling for nine would be a poor view.

Justin Hackett found himself in that other matchpoint dilemma.

West North East South Hackett Smith 1NT Pass 2 Pass 2 Pass 3NT All Pass

Hackett's Strong NT clearly was not the field's choice, but the resulting contract was a good one. The diamond lead went to the Queen, and the Jack of Spades was covered by Queen and Ace. A spade went to West's King, and declarer ducked the King of clubs switch (East playing the 10), ducked the King of diamonds and won the third round of the suit.

At this point, declarer can cash his nine top tricks. However, Justin Hackett was fairly certain that West's shape was 3-2-4-4. Knowing the hearts were 5-2, he could not resist the allure of that matchpoint overtrick, so he took a heart finesse for a tenth trick and when that lost to the doubleton Queen found himself going two done for an awful -200.

It's a shame, but a 70% play still only works… well, about 70% of the time. Today just happened to be one of the other 30%. I will leave you to judge whether this risk was justified or if declarer should judge that most pairs would be failing in 4 and that scoring his contract would therefore produce most of the matchpoints…..