ACES ON BRIDGE
“No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.”
— Third Marquess of Salisbury
The Cavendish Invitational brings together the world’s best pairs and teams for a week of competition with some of the largest cash prizes in bridge. It is currently held in Monaco, but for many years it was organized in Las Vegas. One of the favorites in those years was the partnership of Brad Moss and Fred Gitelman, who had considerable success both as a partnership and individually. Gitelman combines a talent for playing the game with a real acumen for marketing the game through computers and the internet.
Gitelman is the developer of Bridge Master, educational software that features many useful elements of technique to improve the game of everyone from beginners to experts. It was therefore especially piquant that today’s deal cropped up as a problem for Gitelman in the 2001 Cavendish Pairs.
Of all the little-known percentage plays, one of the most obscure is featured in the spade suit on this deal. There might be something to be said for playing six clubs here, but six no-trump looks like the more normal spot. How should you play the key suit of spades to maximize your chances for four tricks?
The answer is to run the spade queen! If the suit is 3-3, you have a blind guess; if the suit is 4-2, you can pick up three of the four honor-doubletons by leading the queen. No other play achieves that result. It is only fitting that when Gitelman was faced with the challenge in six notrump, he duly made the right play and was rewarded when the cards cooperated.
ANSWER: This hand is worth a jump to three spades, which should be played as invitational, not forcing. Note: Many people play two no-trump as artificial here, an extension of Lebensohl. If you do that, the jump to three spades shows five, while going through two no-trump to three spades shows four.