Bridge Play

In the club lounge, Cy the Cynic complimented Rose on a lovely bracelet she was wearing.

“It was my mother’s,” Rose said.

“So it has sentimental value,” suggested Cy.

“Not really,” Rose shrugged. “It says ‘Do not resuscitate.’”

Later, I watched today’s deal in a penny game. Rose played at four spades, and West led the deuce of hearts. The Cynic was East, and he captured dummy’s king and shifted to the jack of diamonds.

FIFTH CLUB

Rose played low and took dummy’s ace. She cashed the A-K of trumps, took the K-A of clubs, ruffed a club, went to the queen of hearts and ruffed a club. Rose then ruffed her last heart in dummy and discarded a diamond on the good fifth club. Making four.

Rose played well, but after Trick One, the defense was on life support. Cy must let dummy’s king of hearts win. If declarer leads another heart, Cy wins and leads a third heart, forcing dummy to ruff and removing a key entry prematurely. And no other line of play will help declarer.

DAILY QUESTION

South dealer N-S vulnerable

NORTH

♠ 1043

♥ KQ

♦ A74

♣ A8752

WEST

Q7 10852 K9862 103

J96 AJ43 J10 QJ96

SOUTH AK852 976 Q53

K4

Opening lead —

North 2

4

You hold: ♠ 1043 ♥ KQ ♦ A74 ♣ A 8 7 5 2. Your partner opens one club. The next player passes. What do you say?

ANSWER: You need to force in clubs, but many partnerships have no direct forcing raise in a minor. Some pairs use “inverted raises”: A raise to two is forcing, a jump-raise is weak. That is not an ideal method: Some responding hands are neither strong nor weak. Unless your partnership has a system bid to employ here, respond one diamond. % "