bridge


bridge

Both vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

xA 4

uQ 8 4 3

v8 6 3 2

wJ 10 6

WESTEAST

xJ 10 8 5x9 7 2

uJ 10 6uA 5

vK 5 41vJ 10 9 7

wA 7 5wQ 8 4 3

SOUTH

xK Q 6 3

uK 9 7 2

vA Q

wK 9 2

The bidding:

SOUTHWESTNORTHEAST

1NTPass2wPass

2uPass3uPass

4uPassPassPass

Opening lead: Jack of x

Man is by nature a fallible creature. That seems to hold particularly true for bridge players, but certainly not for South on this deal.

After Stayman located a heart fit, North took a rosy view of his balanced hand with seven high-card points and no fillers. The result was a game that needed not only a lucky lie of the cards, but a winning guess by declarer.

West led the jack of spades and declarer had a lot of work to do, especially in trumps. To hold his trump losers to one, he had to find a 3-2 break in the suit, to hope for a doubleton ace and to guess which defender had the short hearts.

He made a winning decision at trick one when he won the first trick in dummy and led a low heart to the king. When that held, declarer continued with the nine of hearts, ducked in dummy and was delighted to see East win with the ace. Now declarer needed only one of two finesses in the minor suits to get home.

East shifted to the jack of diamonds, covered with the queen and won by West with the king. The diamond continuation went to declarer’s ace, the seven of trumps to the queen drew the remaining fang and, when the club finesse succeeded, just another routine contract rolled home!

Note Tommy’s careful unblock of hearts, just in case another entry to dummy was needed!

SCrt2010 Tribune Media Services

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