Most competitive partnerships agree that the same systems that are employed over a one no trump opening should be applicable to a two no trump opening. The only real difference is that responders point range is lower. In todays hand, the three heart bid by North is a transfer to spades and the three no trump bid further describes the North hand as having five spades and a point count that would preclude bidding past the game level. If South held a hand with only two spades he would pass and play the no trump game. With more than two spades, it is usually correct to bid the spade game.
West opens the king of clubs. East plays the two. If the queen were not in the dummy, the two would deny holding that card. Since the queen is visible to both defenders, the two of clubs is a "count" card showing an odd number of clubs. West continues with the ace and East plays the nine. West knows that both East and South started with three small clubs. This makes it safe to now lead the jack of clubs. East follows as declarer calls for a spade from the dummy. How should South continue from this point?
If the king of hearts is not in the East hand there will be no chance at all. Add to this the requirement that diamonds will have to be played from the North side of the table, and it is evident that three entries will be needed to the North side of the table. This is one of them so the first thing that has to be done is to play a heart to the jack. The ace of spades is next and a small spade is led to the queen. A second heart finesse wins. Declarer cashes the ace of hearts and leads a small spade to the jack leaving this position:
With the lead in the dummy, declarer calls for a small diamond. His intention is to cover whatever card East plays. West may win, but he has no safe return and the end-play fulfills the game contract.
Unit 125 of the American Contract Bridge League will host the Buckeye State 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 events will be held at the same times for Flight B (no more than 1,500 master points) and Flight C (no more 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:
hjb0416@yahoo.com