Bridge

South 3S response to INT showed a single-suiter in spades and suggested a slam. With a weaker hand in support of spades, North would bid 3NT or just 4S. His actual 4H showed a good fit for spades and the ace of hearts. In other words it was a cue bid. South leapt to 6S immediately, although this was somewhat ambitious facing a weak 1NT. How would you play the slam when West leads the king of hearts? Suppose you win with the ace and draw trumps in three rounds.

You will go down when the clubs do not break 3-3. Instead you should draw just two rounds of trumps with the king and queen, leaving the ace of trumps as a later entry to dummy. You then play the ace and king of clubs. To guard against a 4-2 club break, your next move is to ruff a club. East does indeed show out on the third round of clubs, so you see that the precaution was worthwhile. It remains only to cross to dummy’s ace of trumps, drawing East’s last trump. You can then take two discards on the queen and nine of clubs. The general rule is ‘draw trumps immediately unless there is a good reason not to’. Here the reason for not drawing all the trumps straight away is that you need dummy’s ace of trumps as an entry after you have ruffed the clubs good.

Answer

The first point to note is that you should not make a jump shift when you hold a two-suiter. You need space to find the best fit and losing a level of bidding will impede this process. Should you respond IS or 2C? Here the rule is that you should bid first the higher of two five-card suits, responding 1S. If instead the bidding started 1H-2C-2H-2S, responder would show longer clubs than spades. AWARDS: 1S-10, 2S-7, 2C-5, 3C-3.

David Bird — Knight Features

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