Blurred Vision

27th May - Board 2: N/S Vul. Dealer East

	North: S A K Q 7 6 5 4 2 H 10 2 D 6 C 10 9
West: S 10 H 9 6 4 D K 9 4 3 C K 5 4 3 2		East: S 8 3 H Q J 5 D J 10 7 5 2 C 8 7 6
	South: S J 9 H A K 8 7 3 D A Q 8 C A Q J

A number of players would have been unhappy with their efforts on this exciting board but the reality is that if you keep your focus things could hardly be easier. After South opens 2NT second in hand that North hand is huge, with eight certain tricks, and I think a practical way forward is to ask for aces, find that partner has three and then bid 7S! That may seem rash but you can now count eleven tricks and partner still has an extra eight or so points for the remaining couple of tricks. As an aside people ask for aces in different ways in this situation. A popular approach is to bid 4C, Gerber, but I prefer 4C to show a long club suit with slam interest. I play that 4NT is Blackwood and if I have a ‘quantitative raise’ to 4NT I bid 4S, which otherwise has no meaning at all.

The play in 7S should be trivial, even on a club lead. With twelve tricks ‘on top’ you are just looking for one more and that will come from the heart suit as long as the missing hearts are not worse than 4-2. So win the club ace, cash the ace of trumps and then cash the top two hearts before ruffing one high. As it happens the suit divides 3-3 but even if it didn’t you could return to dummy with the jack of spades and ruff another heart. Then dummy is accessed with the ace of diamonds and the long heart provides a parking place for the second club in the closed hand.