The Auction
N/S were playing a disciplined Weak Two Bid requiring two of the top three honors, and at any vulnerability the South hand is worth an opening bid of 2♥ on suit quality alone. West having nothing to say, North evaluated the responding hand not in terms of HCP but in trick–taking power. Trusting South to hold the heart ace and queen as agreed, North could count nine fast winners and at least one club ruff in dummy. A confident raise to 4♥ ended the auction.
The Play
West led the ♣K, and declarer paused to assess the joint holdings. From the perspective of the closed hand, what to do with the losing clubs? As North had anticipated, there were two club ruffs available even had West led a trump. A third club could be ruffed if the trumps split 2–2, but that still left one to dispose of.
At times, Declarer’s best line of play is to ruff losers in dummy. At other times it is best to develop a side suit for discards by ruffing in the closed hand. The latter choice may risk losing control of trumps if they are divided approximately equally between the two offensive hands, but that is not an issue in this Deal. With sufficient entries in dummy, employing both lines of play will bring home all the tricks provided trumps do not misbehave badly and the diamonds break no worse than 4–2.
Declarer ruffed the opening club lead in dummy, then cashed the ♦A and ruffed a diamond in hand. After a second club ruff, declarer laid down dummy’s remaining ♥K and ruffed another diamond. The ♥A felled the two outstanding trumps, then a spade to the ace and a third diamond ruff established the suit. A spade to the king provided access to the two good diamonds, on which declarer pitched the two remaining clubs. The ♥Q took the thirteenth trick. The outcome is the same on any other opening lead by West.
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Closing Thoughts
Dear Reader, we sometimes rack up so many overtricks in a partscore or game contract that we wonder if a game or slam could have been reached with a better auction. Here, even if South’s outside queen and two jacks were small spot cards, and effectively that is what they are, the hands fit together wonderfully with no wasted values opposite shortness. In hearts, the North hand explodes in value, with every honor working, a 6–card suit as a potential source of tricks, and up to five additional dummy support points for the club void. But as we have mentioned above, bidding control–rich distributional hands is about taking tricks. As Marty Bergen occasionally remarks, “Points, Schmoints!”.
In a previous DOTW article on Kickback Roman Keycard Blackwood we cited the Useful Space Principle: Available bidding space should be assigned by a system to those conventions that can best use it. Opposite a Weak Two Bid, what would a jump to 4♣ signify? We can think of no meaningful natural use for it, so how about a splinter bid expressing slam interest? Despite the horrid hand texture, it would cost South nothing to cooperate with a 4♦ Italian cue bid showing second round control. Hoping to establish the diamonds, an optimistic or aggressive North might jump to a small slam.
This is all highly speculative. Opposite a Weak Two Bid, who of us would continue past ten tricks on no more than 24 HCP? Just getting to 4♥ and bringing a couple of overtricks home will score quite well.
All the best,
Rex
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