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WITH a moderate 20-count, A-K bare in hearts and no spade stopper, many players would have opened 1C instead of 2NT on those South cards. There is little risk of missing a game because you need partner to hold 6 points or so before 3NT will become worthwhile. How would you play the no-trump game when West leads the jack of spades and dummy’s king wins the trick? You need extra tricks from both the minor suits and entries to dummy are sparse. At Trick 2 declarer led the jack of clubs from dummy. All would have been easy if East had covered with the king, as most defenders would. After winning with the ace, declarer would have scored further tricks with the queen and ten of clubs. He could then overtake the five of clubs with dummy’s seven in order to take a succcessful diamond finesse. East could guess that declarer had A-Q-10-x of clubs rather than A-Q-x-x (otherwise he would have led low from dummy, playing East for K-x). East therefore played low on the club jack. Declarer countered by underplaying with the ten! A low club to the queen followed and, once again, declarer could reach dummy on the fourth round of clubs for a diamond finesse. Great defence, great dummy play! Answer You should rebid 4S. If partner passes, missing a slam, and then says ‘I took your 4S as a shutout’, explain to him that since he had promised only 6 points, your 4S rebid must show around 19 points or equivalent distributional values. With a singleton diamond or club, you might have made a splinter bid of 4D or 4C, so you are likely to have 4-5-2-2 shape. AWARDS: 4S-10, 4NT-3, 3S-2. David Bird — Knight Features
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