Bridge

WEST leads the club queen. How will you play? You have three diamond losers and cannot afford a trump loser. West opened the bidding and is therefore favourite to hold the king of spades. However, unless the card is singleton you cannot avoid losing a trick in the suit. Perhaps you should finesse East for the trump king. You will then make the contract however many spades he holds. What do you think? There are 17 points missing and West needs only 12 or so to justify an opening bid, so there is plenty of room for East to hold the missing king. Two more pieces of evidence are at your disposal. Can you think what they are? The first is that East failed to respond and is therefore unlikely to hold as many as 6 points. The second is that West did not lead a diamond. If West held the A-K of diamonds he would surely have led a diamond. It follows that East holds one of the top diamonds and cannot hold the spade king too! After winning the club lead, you play the spade ace and drop West’s king. You can now draw trumps, eliminate hearts and clubs and lead a diamond from dummy. If East fails to rise with the king, you will make an overtrick! He will have to give you a ruff-and-discard when he wins the next diamond.

What rebid will you make? 

Answer
Hands like this are commonplace. You have enough for game but little idea which game will be best. It could be 3NT, 4H, 4S or perhaps 5C. There could even be a slam available. On such hands easily the best action is an artificial call in the fourth suit (here 2D). This is best played as game-forcing and asks partner to continue to describe his hand. Alternative continuations such as 3H or 3S are non-forcing limit bids and therefore inappropriate for a hand with these values.

Awards: 2D-10, 3NT-6, 3H/3S-3.

David Bird — Knight Features

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