Old fashioned players may disagree with North's opening bid. The modern style, however, would favor the artificial, two club, game forcing bid. South's two diamond response is a waiting bid. North bids three clubs to show his suit.
South would like to bid three no trump but if the proper strain is no trump the contract should be played from the North side of the table. Since three diamonds would be a very negative bid, South bids three hearts to show that he has some values. He should have five or more hearts for this bid, but he doesn't and sometimes things like this happen.
North, of course, has great heart support and also has a right to expect a five card suit in the South hand. He asks for aces by bidding four no trump and when South shows an ace, North bids the small slam in hearts.
West leads the seven of spades. Declarer trumps with the queen of hearts and then cashes the ace and king of hearts. The king of diamonds is the entry to the South hand allowing declarer to lead the jack of hearts and draw the last trumps.
Compared to the bidding, the play appears easy. With the hearts breaking three-three, declarer can play two top clubs and trump a club, setting up the suit and allowing him to score an overtrick. This is an excellent matchpoint score. No trump contracts are held to nine tricks with a spade lead. Six clubs is very makeable but is also a difficult contract to bid.
This is the type of hand that you should review with your favorite partner and decide how you would approach the bidding. With all of the different bidding systems in play, looking at hands like this one will help you improve your partnership.
Congratulations to the following local players who have achieved new levels of success in their bridge careers.
Charlotte Baff of Beachwood and Jerome Rolnick of Lyndhurst have passed the 7,500 master point level and are emerald life masters.
Peter Grover of Aurora has passed the 5,000 master point level and is a diamond life master.
Marc Rabinowitz of Hudson and Donald Rop of Chagrin Falls have passed the 2,500 master point level and are gold life masters.
Richard Burgess of Chesterland, Robert Dykes of Lakewood, Henry Essig of Westlake, and Donald Southam of Brecksville have passed the 1,000 master point level and are silver life masters.
Terry Goldberg of Cleveland, Chet Jain of Willoughby, and
Lowell Lutz of Brunswick have passed the 500 master point level
and are bronze life masters.
Lesley Green of Lakewood, Chet Jain of Willoughby, Terry
Goldberg of Cleveland, Molly Jaffe and Stanley Jaffe of Beachwood
have satisfied all of the requirements and are now life masters.
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb0416@yahoo.com