Both vulnerable. East deals.

Both vulnerable. East deals.
NORTH
x A Q 3
u 6 4 2
v A 8 7 4 3
w 8 4
WEST EAST
x J 9 7 2 u K 8 4
u 7 3 u 10 5
v Q 10 v J 9 6 2
w J 10 9 5 3 w A K 6 2
SOUTH
x 10 6 5
u A K Q J 9 8
v K 5
w Q 7
The bidding:
EAST SOUTH WEST NORTH
1w 1u 3w 4u
Pass Pass Pass
Opening lead: Jack of w
All bridge players have a tendency to regard those seated to their right and left as mortal foes. That is far from the truth. Why, at times they can be enlisted, albeit rather unwillingly, to lend you a hand.
After East opened one club and South overcalled one heart, West made a weak jump raise of partner's minor. Afraid that partner might think that a bid of three hearts was simply competitive, North stretched a whit and bid four hearts. That ended the auction.
The defense started quickly with two club tricks, and East exited with a trump. Declarer's problem was to hold his spade losers to one, but the difficulty was that East almost surely has the king of spades for his opening bid. It seemed that a 3-3 diamond split was required, since there was only one entry to dummy outside that suit. However, declarer came up with a very pretty solution to his problem.
Declarer drew the outstanding trumps, then cashed the king and ace of diamonds and led a third diamond. When East followed, declarer discarded a spade instead of ruffing. If the suit divided 3-3, declarer would be able to reach dummy with the ace of spades to take discards on the established diamonds.
But even the 4-2 split did not faze South, because East had to bail him out. If East returned a diamond, he would set up a long card in dummy to take care of the losing spade. A spade would be into the major tenace in dummy and a club would allow declarer to ruff on the table while discarding a spade from hand. In all these cases declarer's second spade loser vanished and the contract sailed home.
& copy; 2005 Tribune Media Services
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