BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Neither vulnerable, West deals

NORTH

xK J

uA K 7 6 5 2

vQ 6

w8 7 5

WEST EAST

x7 3 x6 4 2

uJ 10 3 uQ 9 8 4

vK J 10 9 7 3 2 v8 5

w6 wK J 10 9

SOUTH

xA Q 10 9 8 5

uVoid

vA 4

wA Q 4 3 2

The bidding:

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH

3v 3u Pass 3x

Pass 4x Pass 6x

All Pass

Opening lead: Six of w

We like North’s choice of raising spades with a doubleton honor. The only alternative was to rebid hearts on a suit that was less than robust. Pre-emption takes away your bidding space and forces you to make close decisions. Rebidding hearts, for example, might force partner to pass with a singleton heart and six spades to the queen-10. Four spades is the perfect spot, but South also had a close decision to make and resolved it with an aggressive leap to slam.

The slam is a reasonable proposition, seemingly needing a 3-2 split in clubs with the king onside. The opening lead, however, looked like a singleton, and South had to proceed on the assumption that clubs were splitting 4-1. The opening club lead went to East’s king and South’s ace. A low trump was led to dummy, and the ace and king of hearts were cashed. Declarer surprised everyone at the table by discarding a low club and the ace of diamonds!

A heart was ruffed, and declarer crossed back to dummy with a trump in order to ruff another heart. The long hearts in dummy were now established. South drew the last trump, discarding a club from dummy. He cashed the queen of clubs and exited with his remaining low diamond. West captured this with his king, but he had to lead a diamond to dummy’s queen. This gave dummy an entry to the long heart for declarer’s twelfth trick. A beauty!

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