My now two-year-old daughter is discovering lots of new feelings. Her favorite seems to be unbridled rage. There's yelling, throwing herself on the ground, hitting, biting, and plenty of other activities that her mother and I refer to as "counterproductive." 

That this is normal for a toddler (this age isn't called the "terrific twos") is little comfort. Getting her refocused, thankfully, hasn't been too hard yet. 

As we get older, we're better at controlling our rage, but it's often still lurking under the surface. That lurking rage is a distraction in bridge. So when I hear people say "Ugh I hate declaring 1NT" or "I can't believe [partner] forgot our convention card, AGAIN," I know I'm about to witness some subpar declarer play. 

Let's see if we can avoid that fate on this deal. As we tell June: "Take a deep breath."

North Deals. None vul. 

West	North	East	South
	1	Pass	1NT
All Pass

I like to play 1NT as "Semi-Forcing", but there are plenty of players who like 1NT forcing. In this case, imagine South thought 1NT was forcing and North didn't. This type of auction mixup is common and also commonly the first domino in destroying our mentality. 

We're undeterred as we face the dummy: 

Lead: 10. 

What is the plan? 

Stop before you play the J. How many winners do you see? 

Two spade winners, one heart, no diamonds, no clubs. 

Three tricks to start. We can get more tricks in spades, hearts or clubs. Which is best? 

Clubs: if we knock out the ace of clubs, we'll take four tricks in the suit. While our heart suit isn't bad, it requires a 3-3 split and a finesse to take four extra tricks. 

If clubs is our plan, what other concerns do we have? Our opponents might be able to take a bunch of diamond tricks. How many? It doesn't really matter. The joy of playing in 1NT is that you don't need to care about the opponents running a suit. You can afford to lose four or five diamond tricks (along with the club ace). What you cannot afford is to allow them to win those tricks and also a heart. 

If you put in the J by rote, what happens if East plays the Q? If you win the K, your opponents can prevent you from getting back to your hand by holding up once in clubs. Instead, win the A and lead the J. Your opponents can't defeat you (barring an unlikely 6-1 diamond split). 

Take a look at the full deal: 

Vul:None Dlr: N	AJ6  AQJ54  732  J4
109873  92  AJ  A865		Q4  K1073  KQ1065  73
	K52  86  984  KQ1092

Those eager to play Forcing Notrump will find themselves in 2  (or 2!) which will go down on best defense (though the play is complicated). 1NT may wind up with overtricks depending on the defense.