Wednesday, June 14, 2017
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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