Goren on BRIDGE

North-South vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

xA 9 5 2

uA K Q 10

vQ J 10

w9 5

WEST EAST

xJ 10 xK 8 6 3

u8 5 3 2 uJ 9 7

v9 7 4 3 v8 6 5

wQ 4 3 w10 6 2

SOUTH

xQ 7 4

u6 4

vA K 2

wA K J 8 7

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1NT Pass 6NT Pass

Pass Pass

Opening lead: Seven of v

The finals of the Collegiate Championships, played concurrently with the Summer North American Championships in Washington, D.C., pitted Stanford University (Elena Grewal, Alex Lovejoy, Eric Mayefsky and Zizhuo Wang) against the University of Chicago (Shawn Dremming, Gideon Tan, Rolf Hoyer and Wen Yang Qi). Chicago had the better of the early exchanges, and was leading by 17 imps when this deal came along.

For Stanford, Mayefsky became declarer at six no trump. Declarer won the opening diamond lead in dummy and took the losing club finesse. West shifted to the jack of spades and declarer rose with the ace and started cashing his winners. When hearts produced four tricks, the slam was home.

At the other table, the Chicago South elected to bid six clubs. That was putting all his eggs in one basket and, after West led the jack of spades, there was no way to 12 tricks.

That was 17 imps to Stanford and the match was tied. It also started Stanford on a 53-0 run and, although Chicago mounted a comeback, they ran out of boards and Stanford emerged as winners by a margin of 98-72 imps.

2009 Tribune Media Services