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What will you say on the West cards?
Answer
Many top experts, including Michael Rosenberg of the USA, claim that you should try to find some response to partner’s opening bid however weak you are. The idea is that it makes it harder for the other side to judge if they have a game available. Whenever I try this, partner tends to carry me too high and I am yet to be convinced of the wisdom of the tactic. It therefore seems right to me to pass on this hand.
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It is always annoying when declarer takes a grossly inferior line against you and still manages to make the contract. Reader, Charles Manley, sends me details of one such hand from a local knock-out match. West leads a diamond against your grand slam in clubs. You win in the dummy and play a club to the ace, West showing out. How would you continue? The original declarer decided that he needed two entries to dummy in the spade suit, one to take a trump finesse and another to return to dummy to discard his two hearts. At Trick 3 he led the king of spades, overtaking with the ace! After taking the marked finesse in trumps and drawing trumps, he cashed the queen of spades and saw the jack fall. It was then a simple matter to cross to dummy’s ten of spades to discard the two heart losers. The defenders were too polite to say anything but declarer’s line of play was far from the best. When the bad trump break comes to light, he should lead a low spade to the ace and attempt to discard his two hearts on dummy’s top diamonds. As the cards lie, this line would prove successful. Suppose that East ruffs the third round of diamonds, though. You simply overruff, killing East’s trump trick, and ruff your last heart in dummy.
