Source:IBPAColumn Service APR 2021Tim Bourke**Source: wikipedia:Tim Bourke “is an Australian bridge player and writer. His joint project with Justin Corfield “the Art of Declarer Play” won the International Bridge Press Book of the Year award in 2014.IMPs Dealer South. Both Vul
J 10 5
A 7 5 3 2
5 4
9 6 4
A K Q 6 2
4
Q 9 3
A K 5 3
West
North
East
South
1
21
Pass
2NT2
3
3
4
End
Michaels Cue-Bid: five hearts and a five-pluscard minor
Asks for the minor
The auction was both interesting and revealing. East’s 2NT bid did not promise values as East/West had agreed that three of either minor on this auction would have been to play.
West led the K and got a count signal from East showing an odd number of diamonds. At trick two, West shifted to his trump.
Declarer had eight tricks and saw that he could only make ten tricks by ruffing two cards in the dummy. Consequently, if the defenders were able to lead a second trump, the contract would fail. To prevent this from happening, declarer had to stop East from gaining the lead and West had to have begun with only one trump.
This could only be done if East had held at most one of the jack and ten of diamonds, so declarer took the trump switch on the table with the ten and led a low diamond. When East followed with the eight of diamonds, declarer covered it with the nine. West won the trick with the jack.
Thanks to South’s bidding and East’s signal at trick one, West counted declarer as having at most one heart and so shifted to the king of hearts. Declarer took this with dummy’s ace, then cashed the ace and king of clubs and led his queen of diamonds. When West covered with the ace, declarer made the clever move of discarding dummy’s remaining club.
West continued with the jack of hearts, but to no avail. Declarer ruffed with the six of trumps and was able to crossruff clubs and hearts over the next four tricks. That brought his total to nine tricks and the ace of trumps made ten.
The complete deal:
J 10 5
A 7 5 3 2
5 4
9 6 4
