BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Both vulnerable, East deals

NORTH

xA 6

u10 9 8 6 4 2

v7 5

wQ 8 4

WEST EAST

xQ 5 x8 4 3

uA Q 5 uJ 3

vA 10 8 3 2 vQ 9 6 4

w10 5 3 wK 7 6 2

SOUTH

xK J 10 9 7 2

uK 7

vK J

wA J 9

The bidding:

EAST SOUTH WEST NORTH

Pass 1x Pass 1NT

Pass 3x Pass 4x

All pass

Opening lead: Three of w

We recently featured a deal from a U-26 tournament, where all competitors had to be under 26 years old. Today’s deal is from the concurrent U-16 tournament and all the players were under 16 years old. South was Youp Caris, from the Netherlands.

North’s raise to four spades was based on the exuberance of youth. The players were too young for alcohol to have been involved. Caris might have ducked the opening club lead in dummy, but he didn’t have the dummy entries to take advantage of the club position as long as East withheld his king. He needed dummy entries, so he played dummy’s queen in an effort to get one, and captured East’s king with the ace.

South led the jack of spades from his hand and ran it when West played low. He continued with a spade to the ace and a diamond to his jack, neatly picking the spades and the diamonds correctly. West won with the ace and accurately continued with a diamond to South’s king. Having no entries to dummy, Caris ran all of his spades, coming down to a four-card ending with Caris holding the king-seven of hearts and the jack-nine of clubs. West kept the ace-queen of hearts and the ten-five of clubs. Caris cashed the jack of clubs and exited with the nine of clubs to West’s 10. West was forced to give Caris a trick with the king of hearts for declarer’s tenth trick.

This was beautifully played by anyone, but it’s really special to see a youngster do it.

Tribune Content Agency