No Messing

9th January – Board 2: North/South Game. Dealer East.

Sometimes the simplest approach works best although N/S could consider themselves to be a little lucky on this deal from last Thursday’s pairs competition.

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

West	North	East	South
		No	1D
No	2H	No	3D
No	4NT	No	5C
No	7D	End

In the auction shown above South has shown a six-card diamond suit with his 3D rebid. Why is that? Well if he had another four card suit he would bid it over 2H and if he had a balanced hand with only five diamonds he would be bidding no-trumps at some juncture. So when North employs Blackwood and finds none of the major players are absent it is probably worth taking a pot at the grand although the odds are really not good enough with the queen of trumps missing. Never mind, the adverse cards are about as kind as they could be and seven of just about anything will be an easy make. As an aside, in these clever modern days, if North just bid 4D over 3D many players treat this as Blackwood although it goes by the name of Minorwood! Of course then you would find out the queen of trumps was missing…..