BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Neither vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

xA 5

uA Q

vK 8 7 5 4

wK Q 4 3

WEST EAST

xQ J 10 8 2 x6

uJ 9 5 4 2 u10 7 3

v10 vQ 9 6 3 2

w8 6 wJ 10 7 5

SOUTH

xK 9 7 4 3

uK 8 6

vA J

wA 9 2

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1NT 2v- 3v Pass

3NT Pass 4w Pass

4x Pass 6NT All pass

-Both majors, at least 5-5

Opening lead: Queen of x

Players love to trot out their pet conventions, and they can be effective when they uncover a fit. When they don’t find a useful fit, however, they can enable declarer to read the hand like a book. Such was the fate of West’s two diamond bid in today’s deal.

The opening spade lead was won in dummy with the ace. A diamond to the jack was a good start, and when West showed out on the ace of diamonds, South had a good picture of the opponents’ distribution. West was most likely to have started with a 5-5-1-2 distribution, which meant that the clubs would not be splitting 3-3.

South cashed the two high hearts in dummy, crossed back to his hand with the king of spades, and cashed the king of hearts, shedding a club from dummy. East had discarded a heart on the king of spades, but he had to discard a club on the king of hearts. A diamond discard instead would have allowed declarer to set up a long diamond. South cashed three club tricks, ending in dummy. In this three-card ending, both dummy and East were down to just diamonds. South exited dummy with the seven of diamonds to endplay East, but East showed a touch of class when he refused to win the trick. ”Nobody endplays me,” he said, with a smile on his face. South was chuckling as he cashed the king of diamonds for his twelfth trick and conceded the last trick to East.

Tribune Content Agency