Bridge Hand of the Week

Envelop by Tim Bourke - Apr 12 2010

After North’s Jacoby 2NT, showing a game-forcing raise in hearts, your 3♠ showed shortness (singleton or void) in that suit. Your cuebid of 5♠ revealed your first-round spade control, and North used the Grand Slam Force (5NT) to ask about the quality of your trumps. West leads the ♥3. How do you plan to make your contract?

Solution

As long as the diamonds are not 4-0, making 13 tricks may seem a simple matter, but there are hidden traps. If trumps are 2-2, you will have 13 easy tricks by drawing trumps, then running the diamonds while ruffing two clubs in dummy. Similarly, if the diamonds are 2-2 and the trumps 3-1, you can ruff two clubs in dummy and use spade ruffs for communications. After cashing the ♦A and ♦K, you would cross to the hand with the ♦10 and be able to cash dummy’s remaining diamonds for your contract.

However, difficulties arise when the trumps are 3-1 or 4-0 and the diamonds are 3-1. Suppose the full deal is:

In order to run the diamond suit, you must cash dummy’s three diamond tops, which blocks the suit. So you will need a late entry to dummy to cash the last diamond winner. Ruffing two clubs in dummy, therefore, will not be successful when neither red suit divides evenly. Instead you must look for another plan: A dummy reversal. The idea is to ruff dummy’s three spades in hand and finish in dummy by drawing trumps, discarding a diamond on the last trump.

Having formed this plan, a key moment comes immediately. Unless you play dummy's ♥6, the contract will fail when the full deal is as above. The problem is that if you carelessly play a higher trump you will not have the entries to ruff three spades and draw trumps ending on the table.

If the six is covered, trumps will be 3-1 at worst and ruffing three spades in hand for the contract will be easy. On the above deal, when East shows out, dummy's ♥6 wins the trick and you ruff a spade immediately. After returning to dummy with the ♣A, you ruff a second spade with the king. A diamond to the ace is followed by a third spade ruff, with the ace. You then overtake the ♥J with the queen and draw trumps with the 10-9 (which is why not playing the 6 at trick one is fatal). On the last trump, you discard a blocking diamond from hand. All that will remain is to cash the ♦K and ♦Q, which will allow you to cash the ♦5 and ♦3 as your 12th and 13th tricks.