This hand was played at a local duplicate game. South opened the bidding with one spade. West, taking advantage of the favorable vulnerability, made a "Michael's" cue bid of two spades. This shows a hand with two five card suits, one of which is the other major. This bid really does not promise a lot of points. With a hand of intermediate values (12 to 15 points), it is better to bid both suits. In the event that the bidder has a very good hand and makes a Michael's bid, the hands value can be shown by subsequent bids.
After North passes, East makes a simple preference for hearts and this gets passed around to North. The three spade bid is competitive in nature and does not promise many points. With a better hand he may have bid three spades directly over the two spade call. South has a very nice hand with good heart values and decides that he really doesn't need much from his partner. Four spades ends the auction.
West starts with the king of diamonds. A low diamond is played from dummy and East over takes with the ace. The correct play would have been the three. There is no reason to overtake. If West doesn't continue, the switch will probably be to a heart. Declarer will win and play a spade. East can win the ace and play the ace of diamonds, ensuring the defeat of the contract.
With the play of the ace at trick one, declarer is given a reprieve. East continues with the three of diamonds and alas, declarer falls from grace, trumping this trick. A small spade goes to the queen and the ace. East returns a spade and declarer wins and discovers the bad break. At this point, East has more trump than the declarer and the contract will be defeated one trick.
Do you see the winning play? At trick two declarer must discard a club and allow West's queen to win. On any lead from West declarer wins and plays a spade. East wins the ace but declarer can draw all the trump and discard his ten of clubs on the good jack of diamonds. It doesn't matter if the queen of clubs drops or not.
Declarer has a very good count on the hand from the bidding and play. Spades rate not to break well, so why take a chance? Don't play in haste - take a moment and figure out what is going on. That is sound advice for the defenders as well as for the declarer.
Unit 125 of the American Contract Bridge League will host the Silver Bowl Sectional Bridge Tournament starting next Friday at the Solon Valley Party 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 1,499, and for Stratum C, 0 to 749.
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 2,000 master points or more and Stratum A2 will be for players with less than 2,000 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 (less than 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 440-248-3983. 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.
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb19@adelphia.net