After East opens the bidding with a weak two spade bid, South decided to bid the heart game as a defensive measure. While the South hand has only nine high card points, the two suited distribution and the vulnerability are both points in favor of this action.
West led the queen of clubs. Declarer called for the ace and then played the ace of spades, discarding a diamond. The ten of hearts was covered by East's queen. South won the ace and played another heart. West won the king and led a small diamond. South won the ace and led a small heart to North's eight. The question now was "What is the club situation?".
If the club suit was divided three-two, that is, if West had led the queen from a queen high doubleton, it would not matter. Declarer would lose two more club tricks and make his game. But if the queen was the only club that West had, then declarer would have to be very careful. Here is what the end position looked like:
With the lead in the dummy, the only play that works is to lead the three of clubs towards the South holding. No matter what East plays, he can only come to two club tricks. With any other play, East will score three club tricks and set the contract.
What is really interesting here is the actual results when the hand was played. Making four hearts would be a tie for a top on the board while going down one would be an average result. Allowing East-West to play a spade partial resulted in the lowest scores.
Unit 125 of the American Contract Bridge League held the Silver Bowl Sectional Bridge Tournament in Solon on August 4 - 6. The following players were successful in their respective events on August 6. Other results were listed in previous columns.
Flight A Swiss Teams (11 teams). 1. Don and Kathleen Sulgrove, Twinsburg, with Kenneth and Laurie Kranyak, Bay Village. 2. Lloyd Loux, Westlake, Bernie Greenspan, Beachwood, Jerome Rolnick, Lyndhurst, Pat Chisholm, Macedonia, and Marjorie Baldwin, Akron.
Flight B Swiss Teams (14 teams). 1. Molly Fainer, University Heights, Patricia Attamante, Willoughby, Chris Kleis, Lyndhurst, and Rosemary Kleis, Solon. 2. Frank Scali, North Ridgeville, Michael Ellis, Beachwood, Mary and Richard Hinkle, Warren.
Flight C/D Swiss Teams (19 teams). Stratum C. 1. Doug
Henderson, Rocky River, Betty Williams, North Royalton, Leo Mann,
Lakewood, and Edith Dus-Garden, Fairview Park. 2. Thomas Rice,
Cleveland, Patti Perlmuter, Beachwood, Linda and James Stahl,
Chagrin Falls. Stratum D. 1. Marilyn Bolender, Wadsworth,
Barbara Wallman, Massillon, Mike Marks and Ellen Brown, Akron.
2. Pamela Jones, Shaker Heights, Barbara Cunliffe, Cleveland,
Judy Kaye and Cathy Weber, Chagrin Falls.
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb0416@yahoo.com