BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Both vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

xA K J 6

uA 8

v9 5 2

w8 7 5 3

WEST EAST

xQ x10 9 5 4 3 2

uQ 10 4 3uJ 7 5

vJ 8 6 3 vA K

wJ 9 6 2 wQ 10

SOUTH

x8 7

uK 9 6 2

vQ 10 7 4

wA K 4

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1v Pass 1x Pass

1NT Pass 3NT All pass

Opening lead: Three of u

Both North and South have the values for their bidding, but when two 12-point hands bid to a game, the play can be very delicate.

South won the opening heart lead with dummy’s ace and took stock. Even assuming that the spades would provide three tricks, there were only seven tricks. The diamond suit wasn’t very robust, but it offered the best chance for two more tricks, so South led the nine of diamonds from dummy, won by East with the king. Declarer ducked the jack of hearts continuation, but won the next heart with his king.

South led a spade to dummy’s ace, happy to see the queen fall, and led another diamond, won by East with the ace. East shifted to the queen of clubs, won by South with the ace. South cashed dummy’s two spade winners, discarding his low club while West shed two clubs.

Declarer had a pretty clear picture of the West hand. West had led the three of hearts, and that was expected to be from a four-card suit -- South held the two. West was known to have started with a singleton spade, and might well have led a club if he started with five of them. It seemed likely that West had started with 1-4-4-4 distribution. South led a club to his king, extracting West’s last club, and exited with his remaining heart. West won this with the queen, but then had to lead a diamond into declarer’s queen 10. Well done!

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