Bridge

Peter Smith played this deal in the South-West Pacific Teams. Players tend to bend their weak-two bids so much nowadays (opening on weak five-card suits) that when they hold a standard old-fashioned weak two, they feel they have to open with a three-bid! North raised to 4H and West led the ace of clubs. East won the diamond switch and returned another club, Smith won with the king in dummy and cashed the ace of trumps, receiving the bad news of a 5-0 break. Would you have seen any chance of still making the contract? Declarer crossed to the king of diamonds and played a spade to the queen, which won the trick He then ruffed a diamond and played a second round of spades to the jack. The ace of spades allowed him to discard his last club and his last four cards were the K-Q-9-8 of trumps. It was then an easy matter to play a trump to the eight, end-playing West to lead back into the trump tenace. That gave declarer ten tricks for a very satisfying +420. Does anything occur to you about the defence? West should have played the king of spades on the second round of the suit, giving the impression that he had started with a doubleton spade. Declarer would then have to guess whether to play a third spade regardless, or to attempt to cash the club queen. Although West is more likely to lead a club from A-x than from A-x-x it would have been a difficult decision for declarer!

How will you rebid?

A rebid of 3S would be non-forcing. You need to bid your diamonds,so that partner can bid no-trumps with the hearts well held. Most tournament players treat a rebid of 2D as forcing and that is then the best bid. If you do not have this understanding, bid 3D instead. Partner should not assume that you hold a four card suit in either case because 3NT is the prime target on auctions such as these. AWARDS: 2D (forcing)—10, 3D—8, 3NT—4, 3S—3.

David Bird — Knight Features

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