Sharon and Kevin Robertson sat North and South, in a recent team event and using "old-fashioned" methods bid to what appeared to be a very solid six heart contract. North's three heart call was a forcing heart raise. The four heart rebid by South showed a normal opener with nothing available to cue bid. Four no-trump was no-nonsense Blackwood. Five diamonds showed one ace.
The opening lead was the three of diamonds. Robertson won the ace in dummy and led the two of hearts. East pitched a small diamond and all of a sudden, an easy hand got difficult.
When the dummy was exposed, it seemed as if the only real problem on the hand was whether declarer could make an over trick. When the 5-0 split was revealed, declarer had to find a way to limit West to only one trump trick. Attempting to concede a heart trick to West and then pulling the rest of his trumps was not going to work. West would win whichever trick he was allowed and exit with a diamond, forcing declarer to trump and assuring West a second trump trick.
Robertson decided to attempt to reduce West to only hearts and catch him in a cross fire. To this end, he played a spade to the ace and trumped a diamond. Another spade was led to the queen and another diamond was trumped. He then cashed the ace and king of clubs and then the king of spades which produced this four card ending:
At this point, South needs to win three of the last four tricks and the easiest route is to lead one of his black jacks. West did the best she could be trumping with the nine of hearts but Robertson countered by discarding the seven of clubs. West could only lead a heart which came around to the ten. The jack of clubs was trumped with the king in dummy and the nine of diamonds was trumped with the queen in hand while West was forced to "under" trump helplessly.
If you play enough bridge, and if you bid your cards well,
you will run into these situations every once in a while. Don't
panic. The declarer has an incredible edge in that he can see
all of his assets and maintain control of the hand. Making a
slam against these types of distributions will "make your day"
regardless of the outcome of the match.
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