WEST leads the spade jack against 6H. Two club losers are staring you in the face. What can you do about it? You must aim to eliminate spades and diamonds and then throw in a defender with a doubleton club honor. You win the spade lead and draw trumps in three rounds. You then unblock the king and queen of diamonds and cross to dummy with the remaining spade honor. After discarding a club on the diamond ace, you cross to your hand with the ace of clubs and lead a second club towards dummy. When either defender holds a doubleton club including two honors (as West does here), he will be end-played on the second round. He will have to concede a ruff-and-discard on his return and you can discard the last club from your hand. Even if West unblocks the club king under your ace and follows with the jack on the second round, East cannot overtake with the queen because this would set up dummy’s 10. If West is no star at the game, he may fail to unblock the club king from a holding such as K-9. He will then have to win the second round with the bare king and again concede the contract.
Partner’s INT shows 15-17 points. What response will you make?
Answer
The partnership has been 33 and 35 points, which should be enough for 6NT. When you have full value in terms of points, you should be less inclined to look for a 4-4- fit, by bidding Stayman. Such a fit can give you a slam with 31 or 32 points, where you have sufficient controls and a ruff produces a twelfth trick. By choosing a suit as trumps, you risk a bad break in that suit or an adverse ruff. Here 6NT should be safer.
WEST leads the spade jack against 6H. Two club losers are staring you in the face. What can you do about it? You must aim to eliminate spades and diamonds and then throw in a defender with a doubleton club honor. You win the spade lead and draw trumps in three rounds. You then unblock the king and queen of diamonds and cross to dummy with the remaining spade honor. After discarding a club on the diamond ace, you cross to your hand with the ace of clubs and lead a second club towards dummy. When either defender holds a doubleton club including two honors (as West does here), he will be end-played on the second round. He will have to concede a ruff-and-discard on his return and you can discard the last club from your hand. Even if West unblocks the club king under your ace and follows with the jack on the second round, East cannot overtake with the queen because this would set up dummy’s 10. If West is no star at the game, he may fail to unblock the club king from a holding such as K-9. He will then have to win the second round with the bare king and again concede the contract.
Answer