Source: IBPA Column Service Jul 2018
Dealer South. E/W Vul
A 10 9 8
A 6 5
6 4
A K 7 5
—
10 9 8 7 2
K 9 7 3 2
Q 4 2
7 6 4 3
4
J 10 8 5
10 9 6 2
K Q J 5 2
K Q J 3
A Q
J 8
West
North
East
South
1
Pass
2NT
Pass
3NT
Pass
4
Pass
4
Pass
4
Pass
4NT
Pass
5
Pass
5NT
Pass
6
Pass
7
Pass
Pass
Pass
After North’s Jacoby two notrump, promising four card spade support, South’s rebid promised extras while denying six spades and a singleton or void in a suit.
Tim Bourke
After some control-bidding, South asked for key cards and then confirmed that the partnership had them all by bidding five notrump. When North showed that he held the king of clubs by bidding six clubs, South bid what he thought he could likely make.
West led the ten of hearts. When dummy came down, declarer counted twelve winners and saw that, if trumps were no worse than 3-1, he could draw the trumps, discard a diamond from dummy on the fourth round of hearts: and ruff the queen of diamonds in the dummy.
So, declarer played low from dummy and won the first trick in hand with his king. He played a low trump toward dummy. When West discarded a diamond, declarer won the trick with dummy’s eight of trumps.
Declarer saw that trying to ruff a diamond was too dangerous a policy to pursue. Instead, he decided to ruff two clubs in hand without using the ace of hearts as an entry.
He cashed the ace and king of clubs then ruffed a club with the king of trumps. Next, he led the queen of trumps to dummy’s ace and ruffed dummy’s last club with the jack of trumps.
Declarer’s remaining trump, the five, was now led to dummy’s nine. After drawing East’s last trump with dummy’s ten, declarer claimed thirteen tricks: four trumps, four hearts, a diamond, two clubs and two club ruffs. Note that the bad heart break meant that if declarer had been careless with his trump entries to dummy he would have gone down when he tried to cross back to dummy in hearts.
A 10 9 8
A 6 5
6 4
A K 7 5
