Brushed Aside

5th April – Board 17: Love All. Dealer North.
Distribution is everything as the featured hand shows and yet one has to have sympathy for the North/South pair who had the bread taken out of their mouths.
West
North
East
South
No
1D
1S
Dbl
2D
3C
4S
5C
Dbl
End
The auction as relayed above is how I think it should have gone, with the most noteworthy bid being the Unassuming Cue Bid of 2D by North. It might seem more natural to bid 2H but that is flawed by the knowledge that West’s double is showing hearts, and in any event 2H is not forcing and would usually deny three card support for partner (who of course is showing at least a five-carder.) Maybe it’s a bit of a push but you can upgrade the AQ of hearts. In any event E/W should “sacrifice” in 5C, which turns out to be extremely profitable bringing in a score of +550. Several pairs were allowed to make game in four spades the other way when East/West failed to get their heart ruff and maybe that’s not so easy to find. At least to my knowledge no-one did.

2 comments:

  1. with E bidding diamonds, a lead of the Ace by W seemed worth a gamble
    Once dummy went down the long heart holding at least offered an chance so a follow up heart lead by W looked the part
    The heart ruff and 2 clubs be E took the contract down

    ReplyDelete
  2. That was well done. But even if West leads a club at trick 2 East has to be brave and win the king before returning a low club. West will wonder what is going on but will hopefully get the message and lead a heart for partner to ruff.

    ReplyDelete

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