It is good to keep in mind that first or second seat pre- emptive bids can often cause problems for your partner. This hand is a perfect example. The player in the North seat is trying to decide how to handle his beautiful 23 point hand when his partner opens the bidding with three spades.
North's four no-trump is "Key-Card Blackwood". There are five "key cards", the four aces and the king of whatever suit is going to be trump, in this case, spades. South responds five diamonds. This partnership has agreed that a response of five clubs will show one or four key cards, five diamonds shows zero or three.
North would feel much better if his partner would have shown the king of spades by bidding five clubs. Lacking that card, North decides to become conservative and sets the contract at five spades.
If South's king of clubs was a small club, and the king was one of his spades, a small slam would have been a virtual laydown. First and second seat pre-emptive bids should have most of the high cards in the suit bid. If partner knows that he can rely on this, he will find it much easier to determine what to do.
At any rate, West leads the nine of hearts. Declarer wins the queen and leads a small spade. West follows low and the ace wins this trick. East, however, shows out. Now, even five hearts is at risk. In order to make this contract, declarer will have to reduce his trump holding so that he only has three left when he allows West to regain the lead. He is going to have to be a little lucky as well.
A small club to the king and a small heart back to the ace allows declarer to cash the king of clubs and discard his third heart. Another club is trumped in the closed hand. A diamond to the queen holds and the last club is trumped. A diamond to the ace allows declarer to lead the last diamond from dummy, trumping in hand and bringing this position:
At this point, having won the first ten tricks, it is a simple matter to lead the eight of spades. West must win the ten and can do no better than cashing the king. South's queen wins the last trick and fulfills the contract.
The Great Bridge Scandal by Alan Truscott was first published in 1967. It is the story of the accusations brought against two of the best players in the world for their actions during the World Championship Tournament in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1965. Now, close to fourty years later, the original text has been revised and updated by the author and re- published by Master Point Press of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Truscott has been the Bridge Editor for the New York Times since 1964 and probably knows more than anyone else about the complex world of international bridge. His telling of this story has stood the test of time and is a compelling read for any tournament bridge player.
The Great Bridge Scandal is available from your favorite
bridge book seller for $21.95. For more information go to
www.masterpointpress.com
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.