bridge

June 9, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

bridge

Neither vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

xQ 3

uA 5 3 2

vK J 7 3

w5 3 2

WEST EAST

x9 8 7 5 4 xA K

u4 uJ 9

vQ 10 8 4 2 vA 9 6 5

wQ 9 wA 8 7 6 4

SOUTH

xJ 10 6 2

uK Q 10 8 7 6

vVoid

wK J 10

The bidding:

SOUTH WESTNORTH EAST

1u Pass 3u Pass

4u Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Nine of x

Hands with four spades and five (or sometimes six) hearts can be notoriously difficult to bid, especially if the opponents intervene. Some 50 years ago Pittsburgh star Bill Flannery devised a convention where these hands were opened with two diamonds. While the convention still has die-hard adherents, as in this hand from the Trials to select the American teams for the 2009 World Championships, it never caught on.

Where South opened with one heart as dealer, he elected to treat his hand as a good opening bid and went on to game over North’s limit raise. West made the normal-looking lead of a spade from his sequence, East won with the king and shifted to a club. If South guesses right and plays the king, the defenders cannot untangle their club tricks and the contract rolls home. However, if South inserts the jack, the defense collects two spades, two clubs and a club ruff – down two.

This was the auction in the other room:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

2v Pass 4u Pass

Pass Pass

After South’s Flannery two- diamond opening bid, North upgraded his queen of spades and responded by jumping to game in hearts, and East had an opening lead problem. Since South was known to hold nine or 10 cards in the majors, a spade lead might give declarer time to set up spades, if necessary. He had to choose between his minor-suit aces and, since he had longer clubs, he reasoned that a club trick might go away rather than a diamond.

His opening lead of the ace of clubs proved fatal. Declarer rose with the king of clubs on the continuation, dropping the queen. South drew trumps, ending in dummy, discarded a spade on the knave of clubs and claimed 10 tricks.

2010 Tribune Media Services