Bridge
David Bird — Knight Features

West opens with a weak 2S, showing 5-9 points. South responds 4H to the take-out double and West plays the ace, king and jack of spades. How would you play? Declarer ruffed the third spade with a high trump, to avoid an overruff, and drew trumps in three rounds. It would be easy to make the contract if West held one of the missing club honours. You could simply take two finesses in the suit. West has already shown up with 8 points, however, so a club honour would carry him over the limit for a weak-two. Declarer tested the diamonds, since a 3-3 break would allow him to throw a club on the fourth round. When they proved to be 2-4, he ruffed the fourth round.

The North, East and South hands were all reduced to three cards in clubs. When declarer run the ten of clubs, East he had to win with one honour and lead away from the other into dummy’s tenace. Game made! What would happen if West switched to a club after cashing just one top spade? Declarer would play low in the dummy, allowing East to win. East could not continue clubs from his side, and would doubtless have crossed to his partner’s hand with a second round of spades. Declarer wins the next club with the ace, crosses to a diamond, ruffs a spade and plays four rounds of trumps. East is squeezed in the minors, forced to throw a diamond or a club honour. Only a club lead beats the contract.

Answer
With a slightly stronger hand, you would rebid 2C, intending to bid 2S over a preference to 2D. When you are minimum it works better to support spades immediately, despite the fact that you have only three-card support. If you do not believe this, why not give it a try for a few weeks? It is what all the ‘professionals’ do, despite the fact that it means their partners will play more of the hands!

AWARDS: 2S-10, 2C-7, 2D-3.

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