BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Both vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

xJ 10 9 6 4 2

uA J 5

v8

wA J 6

WEST EAST

x5 x7 3

u10 9 8 uQ 7 4 3

vJ 9 6 5 4 vA 10 7 3

w8 5 4 2 wQ 10 9

SOUTH

xA K Q 8

uK 6 2

vK Q 2

wK 7 3

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

2NT Pass 3u- Pass

4x Pass 6x All pass

-Transfer to spades

Opening lead: 10 of u

The club’s Saturday night duplicate saw the usual crew battling it out. Most pairs reached this quality slam, with good chances for success.

Hard Luck Louie counted 11 tricks, including one diamond trick, and a 12th would come if West held either one of the two missing queens. Louie found out about the queen of hearts right away when he covered the 10 of hearts lead with dummy’s jack. No luck there as East produced the queen. Louie drew two rounds of trump, ending in dummy, and led dummy’s singleton diamond. Had East risen with the ace, Louie would have had 12 tricks, but East had an easy duck. Louie needed both the king and queen of diamonds for his opening bid. Louie won with his king, then cashed the king of clubs and led a club to the jack, ending up down one. ”Don’t the cards ever lie right for me,” cried Louie?

When Lucky Larry played this slam, with the same lead, he took a different view of his chances. He saw that his contract was cold as long as East held the ace of diamonds, regardless of where the queens were located. He played low from dummy at trick one, winning in his hand with the king. Larry drew trumps in two rounds, ending in dummy, and led dummy’s diamond. East again played low, so Larry won with the king and then ruffed his low diamond in dummy. He crossed back to his hand with a trump and led the queen of diamonds. Rather than ruffing, Larry simply discarded a low club from dummy. East won his ace, but had to lead into one of dummy’s ace-jack combinations or yield a ruff-sluff. Six spades, bid and made!

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