Bridge

April 27, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Bridge

Neither vulnerable. West deals.

NORTH

xA K 9 6 4 2

uK 8 2

vK J 9

WEST EAST

x3 xQ J 10 8 7

uJ 10 5 u7 6 4 3

v8 7 5 3 vVoid

wA J 10 6 2 wK Q 7 5

SOUTH

uA Q 9

vA Q 10 6 4 2

w9 8 3

The bidding:

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH

3w! 3x Pass 4v

Pass 5w Pass 6v

Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Jack of u

In the past two decades, tournament bridge bidding has changed drastically. The object is more to interfere with the opponents’ bidding than to reach your optimum spot. This deal is typical.

No one would have dreamed of pre-empting with three clubs in the good old days. Today, the pre-empt seems only to guarantee that the bidder is not void in the suit! Far from being disrupted by the opponents’ action, North-South reached six diamonds in short order with the help of a cue-bid in clubs.

Without the pre-empt, 12 tricks are easy to come by. Win the opening heart lead, concede a club, and you can ruff one club loser in dummy and discard another on a high spade.

However, when the pre-empter led the jack of hearts, declarer became fixated with the idea that West held a singleton heart. In that case, conceding a club would permit East to give West a heart ruff, so declarer won the heart in hand, crossed to the ace of spades and ruffed a spade high. Now declarer could not set up the spades without promoting a trump trick for the defense and conceding a club would be met with a spade ruff — down one.

2010 Tribune Media Services