The Spring North American Championships XIII

by Phillip Alder

Here are two more deals from the Spring Nationals in Reno, NV, last month. Let's start with an opening-lead problem. You are playing in a Swiss Teams event and only the opponents are vulnerable. This is your hand: ‰ A Q 8 7 5 3 2 Š 10 ‹ 8 7 3 2 Œ 3

You will not be surprised to see that the auction is exciting:

West North East South You Dummy Partner Declarer 4Š Dble Pass 6Œ Pass 6‹ Pass Pass Pass

Partner's four-heart opening denies a solid suit; with that, she would have opened three notrump. What is your against six diamonds?

Now a bidding problem that leads to a defensive dilemma. In a pair game with both sides vulnerable, you hold:

‰ 8 2 Š Q J 4 3 ‹ K Œ A K Q J 6 3

The auction starts like this:

West North East South Partner Responder You Opener 1‹ 1Š Dble (a) ?? (a) Negative showing exactly four spades

What would you do?

Suppose you decide to advance with four diamonds, a showing four-plus-card heart sup- port, game-going values and a singleton or in diamonds. The opener on your left rebids four spades, which is passed around to you. What would you do now?

1 I will discuss the various bids that you might have made in a moment. You end on defense against five spades doubled after the auction given below.

North (Dummy) Dlr: South ‰ Q J 10 7 Vul: Both Š 8 2 ‹ Q J 9 4 2 Œ 8 4 East (You) ‰ 8 2 Š Q J 4 3 ‹ K Œ A K Q J 6 3 West North East South Partner Dummy You Declarer 1‹ 1Š Dble 4‹ 4‰ Pass Pass 5Š Pass Pass 5‰ Dble All Pass

Partner leads the heart nine, promising the ten and perhaps a higher honor, which won't be the ace. You decide to play your jack. South takes the trick with the ace and leads the spade five, which is covered by the nine, ten and two (your card being a suit-preference for clubs). Now comes the spade queen from the . Partner takes that with the ace and leads the heart ten. How would you defend?

2 If you have attend a North American Championships, you will have noticed a petite woman with dark brown hair carrying a camera and taking numerous photo – Peg Kaplan of Minnetonka, MN. In the first problem posed above, she was playing with her bridge partner for the last 22 years, Bill Kent of Iowa City, IA. This was the full deal:

North Dlr: East ‰ – Vul: N-S Š Q 7 ‹ K 5 4 Œ A K J 10 6 5 4 2 West East ‰ A Q 8 7 5 3 2 ‰ 9 Š 10 Š A K J 9 8 6 3 2 ‹ 8 7 3 2 ‹ 9 Œ 7 Œ 9 8 3 South ‰ K J 10 6 4 Š 5 4 ‹ A Q J 10 6 Œ Q West North East South Kent Kaplan 4Š Dble Pass 6Œ Pass 6‹ Pass Pass Pass

Kaplan showed her partner's hand to several players and they all led the spade ace. This is debatable because South has announced a spade-diamond two-suiter in the bidding. (With a diamond one-suiter, he would have bid it immediately. With a quasi-three-suiter, he would have passed over six clubs.) If South has four spades, that is eleven accounted for; and if partner were void, she surely would have made a Lightner Slam Double. If the spades are 7-1-1-4 round the table, maybe dummy's clubs will not provide a sufficient number of discards. Kent, though, led his heart. As you can see, this was the winner. Kaplan took the first two tricks to defeat the slam. After the spade-ace start, declarer would have had 15(!) top tricks: the spade in the dummy, his spade king, five diamonds and eight clubs. At the other table, Kaplan's and Kent's teammates, Steve Beatty of Mill Creek, WA, and Brian Howard of Bradenton, FL, made five diamonds with two overtricks. Plus 100 and plus 640 gave the winners of Sunday's Daylight Swiss Teams 12 international match points on the board.

3 Finding the right defense in the second problem was tough. The deal occurred during the first session of the . This was the full deal:

North Dlr: South ‰ Q J 10 7 Vul: Both Š 8 2 ‹ Q J 9 4 2 Œ 8 4 West East ‰ A 9 3 ‰ 8 2 Š K 10 9 7 5 Š Q J 4 3 ‹ – ‹ K Œ 10 9 7 5 2 Œ A K Q J 6 3 South ‰ K 6 5 4 Š A 6 ‹ A 10 8 7 6 5 3 Œ – West North East South 1‹ 1Š Dble 4‹ 4‰ Pass Pass 5Š Pass Pass 5‰ Dble All Pass

The play started: heart nine to your jack and South's ace; spade five covered by the nine (suit- preference for diamonds), ten, deuce (suit-preference for clubs); the spade queen taken by the ace; and the heart-ten return. Why did partner not shift to a club as you requested? Also, why did he lead the heart ten , not a lower one? He was trying to tell you that he has a diamond void, hard though that is for you to anticipate. But the only way to defeat five spades doubled is to overtake the heart ten with your queen and lead the diamond king. Note that you know declarer is 4=2 in the majors, so even if he has one or two clubs, he can- not discard them on anything in the dummy; those tricks can wait.

The eventually winners of the event, Jeff Meckstroth of Clearwater Beach, FL, and Eric Rodwell of Clearwater, FL, made five hearts doubled by West. Note that to defeat this contract, North must give his partner a club ruff, either immediately or after leading the spade queen. (In this latter case, South must take the first heart trick and underlead his spade king with his lowest-remaining spade as a suit- preference signal for clubs. That is tough also.)

Lastly, let's return to East's bidding problem on the first round. The splinter bid does send the right message, but personally I much prefer four clubs, if it is a fit-showing jump. I am going to discuss those bids next week. Then, after the chosen four diamonds, on the next round five clubs is the technically correct rebid. But in a pair event, you sometimes try to buy the contract without giving away too much information to the opponents.

These deals were in the daily bulletins edited by Sue Munday and Brent Manley. Sad to relate, the per- son who provided information about this deal did not find the play to defeat five spades doubled.

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