East-West vulnerable. South deals.

East-West vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

x10 9 6

uJ 9 5

vA Q 2

wJ 9 6 4

WEST EAST

x7 5 3 xQ 8 4

u3 2 uA 4

v10 9 8 7 6 vK J 5 4 3

w8 7 3 wQ 10 2

SOUTH

xA K J 2

uK Q 10 8 7 6

vVoid

wA K 5

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

2w Pass 2NT Pass

3u Pass 4u Pass

6u Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Ten of v

Do not go quietly into the night. If you can see the evil designs an opponent has in store for you, do what you can to lead him astray.

With a three-loser hand and a good six-card major suit, the South hand is easily worth a demand opening bid and North’s two no trump is a positive response with scattered values. When North raised hearts, South went directly to slam.

West led the ten of diamonds and the fact that so much of North’s values were in diamonds was mildly upsetting to declarer. However, slam had its chances. South covered the ten with the queen and, had it held, declarer could claim 12 tricks. But East covered the queen with the king. Declarer ruffed and led the king of hearts to East’s ace and won the trump return.

With the trumps cleared and a trump entry to dummy, South had a reasonable play. He continued with the ace and king of clubs. If the queen did not appear, he intended to go to dummy with the trump and take a spade finesse.

However, it was obvious to East from the auction that declarer had to have ace-king in both black suits, so East smoothly dropped the queen of clubs on the second round of the suit. Suddenly declarer saw a “sure-trick” line for his slam. He continued with a club to the nine, expecting it to hold and then he could take two spade discards on the jack of clubs and ace of diamonds. Down one when East produced the club ten!

2008 Tribune Media Services