Simple Approach

28^th November – Board 14: Love All. Dealer East.

Bridge is a funny old game and on the hand shown below South’s initial apprehension would turn to joy with a useful layout of the opposing cards.

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

West	North	East	South
		No	1D
No	1S	No	1NT
No	4S	End

You may not approve of the suggested bidding, especially opener’s rebid, but in all honesty what else is he supposed to do? A rebid of 2D is feeble and 2C is ghastly which just leaves 1NT – not so awful in reality. If North adopts a simple approach he will just bid 4S, although with some reservations about missing a slam, and South will look duly apologetic when he tables his cards. However on a heart lead there are twelve easy tricks with both spades and diamonds being benign and in fact it takes a diamond lead to defeat the slam. Do you see why? In with the ace of spades West can play another diamond and dummy’s main asset is cut off. Now some pairs played in 3NT and on a heart lead declarer would win and play a spade, although when East plays the three showing an odd number an astute West would duck, blocking the suit. In the end declarer would play for the diamonds to break but would only emerge with only nine tricks – a matter of little consequence at teams but disastrous at pairs.