BRIDGE

North-South vulnerable. North deals.
NORTH
x 10 5
u A 7 6 3
v A J 9
w A K J 10
WEST EAST
x Q 8 6 2 x 4
u Q J 10 8 u K 9 5 4 2
v 6 2 v 8 7 3
w 9 5 2 w 8 7 6 3
SOUTH
x A K J 9 7 3
u Void
v K Q 10 5 4
w Q 4
The bidding:
NORTH EAST SOUTH WEST
1NT Pass 2u Pass
2x Pass 3v Pass
3NT Pass 4v Pass
4NT Pass 5x Pass
7v Pass Pass Pass
Opening lead: Queen of u
There is usually more than one way to try to land your contract, but choosing the better one is not necessarily the road to success. Sometimes you can combine the lines at no cost.
After North's one-no-trump opening South transferred into spades and then bid his second suit, thereby committing the hand to at least game. The diamond rebid was a slam try and North with an all-prime maximum and excellent trump support launched into Key-Card Blackwood, where the king of the agreed trump suit counted as a fifth ace. South's five-spade response promised two key cards and the queen of trumps, and North bid the grand slam.
West led the queen of hearts, and two obvious lines suggested themselves -- setting up spades with one ruff if spades were 3-2, or taking two spade finesses if necessary. However, the high trumps in dummy suggested an alternative with a fallback position in spades if trumps were not 3-2: a dummy reversal.
Declarer rose with dummy's ace of hearts, discarding a spade from hand. Declarer ruffed a heart in hand, then overtook the five of diamonds with the nine to ruff another heart high. The queen of trumps was overtaken with the ace, both defenders following. Dummy's last heart was trumped with declarer's remaining diamond and a club to dummy provided the entry to draw the last trump. The last four tricks were scored by the table's good clubs and declarer's ace-king of spades.
& copy; 2004 Tribune Media Services