BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Neither vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

xA 7

uK 4 3

v10 8 3

wA Q J 9 5

WEST EAST

x8 6 3 2 xQ 9 5

uQ 9 6 5 uJ

vQ vK J 9 7 6 5 4

w8 7 4 3 w10 2

SOUTH

xK J 10 4

uA 10 8 7 2

vA 2

wK 6

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1u Pass 2w Pass

2x Pass 3u 4v

4NT Pass 5v Dbl

5u Pass 6u All pass

Opening lead: Queen of v

Today’s deal is from a U-26 competition, where all competitors are under the age of 26. We have no idea what North’s five diamond bid meant, but we suspect it was an error. He realized what he had done and raised the five-heart sign off to six, saying a silent prayer as he did so. South was Victor Todd-Muir, from Denmark.

Todd-Muir won the opening diamond lead with his ace and led a low heart to dummy’s king. The fall of the jack from East was alarming. South decided that it was a singleton, as opposed to a very friendly queen-jack doubleton, and he played the rest of the hand accordingly. He cashed dummy’s ace of spades, led a spade to his king, and ruffed a spade in dummy. The fall of the queen of spades allowed declarer to cross back to his hand with the king of clubs and discard a diamond from dummy on the jack of spades.

Todd-Muir then led a club to dummy’s ace and discarded his remaining diamond on the queen of clubs. When East discarded on the third club, the hand was an open book. South ruffed a club to reduce his trump length to the same as West’s. In this three-card end position, with South and West down to three trumps each, Todd-Muir exited with a low heart to West’s nine. West was then forced to lead a heart from his queen into declarer’s ace-10 and Todd-Muir had landed his slam. Well done!

Tribune Content Agency