Neither vulnerable. South deals.

Neither vulnerable. South deals.
NORTH
x Void
u Q 10 6 2
v A 8 4 3
w J 10 8 7 4
WEST EAST
x K Q 8 6 3 2 x A 9 7
u J 9 7 3 u 5 4
v K 10 v J 9 7 6 2
w 6 w 5 3 2
SOUTH
x J 10 5 4
u A K 8
v Q 5
w A K Q 9
The bidding:
SOUTH WEST NORTHEAST
1w 1x 2w 2x
3NT Pass 5w Pass
6w Pass Pass Pass
Opening lead: King of x
Yesterday, we saw that counting points can show the way to make a sure thing out of a possible guess. Counting the distribution can do the same thing.
Negative doublers could have trotted out their favorite weapon for North at his first turn. By removing three no trump to five clubs, North was not showing additional strength, just a hand unsuited to playing no trump -- four clubs, removing a game contract to a partscore, would have shown a stronger holding and would have been forcing. Since North obviously held no high card in spades and at best the queen of hearts, he had to hold a high diamond and, on the bidding, probably a spade void, so South elected to gamble on a club slam.
West led the king of spades, ruffed in dummy. Declarer decided to play the hand along dummy-reversal lines and, at trick two led a diamond to the queen and king. West returned a club, won in the closed hand with the queen. A diamond was led to the ace, declarer ruffed a diamond with the king as West discarded a spade, and led the nine of clubs, overtaking in dummy with the ten, West parting with another spade. Now declarer had an almost complete picture of the distribution. On the bidding, West could not hold more than six spades (East had raised spades), and had shown up with only one club and two diamonds, and so had to have at least four hearts.
Declarer ruffed the table's remaining diamond with his last trump, crossed back with a spade ruff and drew the remaining trump, discarding a spade from hand. The king and ace of hearts was cashed and the marked finesse for heart jack was taken for the 12th trick.
& copy; 2006 Tribune Media Services
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