Thanks to Stan Dub and Niel Waletzky of Shaker Heights for this hand from a session at a local duplicate bridge game. North opened with one club and Dub, sitting East, made a one spade overcall. Three diamonds by South was a "weak jump shift".
Waletzky, sitting West, bid four clubs which was a "cue bid" showing a club control and a game going hand. North jumped to five diamonds which was passed back to West. Waletzky showed his six card heart suit and North continued to compete with six diamonds.
Dub's minimum overcall was starting to look huge in light of the bidding and he had no trouble raising hearts. East, fearful that six hearts was making, bid seven diamonds. This was doubled.
Waletzky was on lead and it was pretty clear that he was going to have to take some chances to get a good score. He started off by leading the five of hearts. Dub won the queen and returned the jack of clubs, which was trumped by Waletzky. The jack was a suit preference card asking for a spade return. Waletzky complied by leading a small spade to Dub's queen. Another club was trumped for the last defensive trick.
Down four was worth 1,100 points for East-West. The opponents were congratulating themselves for this result because they were able to keep East-West from bidding the cold grand slam in either major suit.
North-South's elation was short-lived. When the scores were tabulated, all of the other East-West pairs had earned 710 on the board, bidding four of a major and making seven. The opposition's persistant preemptive bidding pushed Dub and Waletzky to the small slam that would have been otherwise difficult to bid. Once the opponents bid seven diamonds and were doubled, excellent defense earned Dub and Waletzky a top score.
Unit 125 of the American Contract Bridge League will host the Ohio Master's Sectional Bridge Tournament starting next Friday at the Solon Valley Pary Center, 6340 Melbury, Solon. Single session stratified events for players at all levels will be held at 1:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Stratum A will be restricted to players with more than 1,500 master points. The master point range for Stratum B will be 750 to 1,500, and for Stratum C, 0 to 750.
A two session Open Pair event will start at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. The second session will start at 3:30 p.m. This event will be stratified. Stratum A1 will be for players with 2,500 master points or more and Stratum A2 will be for players with less than 2,500 master points. Single session stratified events will be held at the same times for Stratum B (500 to 1,500 master points) and Stratum C (0 to 500 master points).
Separate events will also be held on Friday and Saturday for players with less than 300 master points.
Team events for players of all levels will start at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
Additional information and partnership assistance is
available by calling 440-543-1286. The Unit 125 web site can be
found at http://www.whistclub.org
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.