They come in, but you still win

By Phillip Alder

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, in a keynote speech at the 2006 South by Southwest festival, said, “People everywhere have the same needs and values.”

This week, we have been looking at the Cappelletti convention for intervening over one no-trump. But what happens when the responder has some values and needs to bid?

If the overcall is two clubs (showing a one-suiter somewhere), the simplest agreement is to treat double as Stayman and every other bid as per your normal system in response to one no-trump.

In this deal, North bid two hearts, a transfer to spades. South, with a maximum and four-card support, jumped to three spades, a superaccept. North nudged up to game.

West cashed three heart winners, then shifted to the diamond queen. How should South have continued?

To succeed, declarer had to play the trump suit without loss. If the missing spades were 4-0, there was no chance. If they were 2-2, there could have been a guess. If they were 3-1 with a singleton honor, declarer had to guess which opponent had that singleton. Given the 61 heart split, West was more likely to be short in spades. So, South started with dummy’s spade king. When the jack dropped from West, declarer finessed through East on the second round, paying off if West had started with queenjack-doubleton.

This play is approved by the Principle of Restricted Choice. If West had both honors, he might have played either of them. Because he played specifically the jack (or queen), there was an assumption that he didn’t have the other honor — that his play was restricted.