Bright Start

13th June – Board 23: Game All. Dealer South.

Clever conventions are all very well but they can sometimes be of use to the opponents too. That should have been the case with the following hand when, after a bright start, the defence somewhat lost their way.

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

West	North	East	South
			1NT
No	No	2C	No
2D	No	2H	End

East has a close call between doubling 1NT or using an Asptro type bid of 2C showing, in this instance, a hand with five hearts and another four card undisclosed suit. Maybe with the opposition vulnerable double has the edge because a one-trick defeat will attain the magic +200, always a good result at pairs, whereas a non-vulnerable +100 will lose out to any E/W pair making 2H. At any rate 2H it was and South found the best lead of the seven of diamonds. North did well by ducking this and declarer led a top trump, won by South who continued diamonds and then got his ruff. So far, so good. But by this time South knows that East started with five hearts, three diamonds and another four-card suit. Can it be clubs? No, because then his partner would have started with six spades and would have transferred over 1NT so declarer is marked with a 4-5-3-1 distribution. Armed with this knowledge after obtaining his ruff South should have cashed the ace of clubs and exited with the ten of trumps. Left to play spades from his hand declarer would have suffered a one trick defeat, but sadly for N/S it didn’t go quite like that.