ACES ON BRIDGE

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

— Oscar Wilde

Weak two-suited opening bids can mess up the opponents, but they can also backfire horribly. Witness today’s deal from the Yeh Bros Cup.

Four hearts is impossible for North-South to make here, but it would have been easy to get rich by defending three diamonds doubled. However, against Liu Jun’s three-no-trump contract, Ian Robinson led the diamond seven to Arjun Delivera’s nine. Jun won and played on clubs. East ducked the first club, then won the next.

Back came a low diamond rather than the jack; declarer made a good guess and won in hand, cashed his spade and heart winners, and presented East with a diamond. Delivera could cash three diamonds, but then had to concede the last three clubs to dummy.

East should have unblocked both the diamond nine and jack early, in which case West would have had the option to win the third round of diamonds with the six.

Now declarer is threatened with five top losers if he surrenders a heart while the defenders still have communications in diamonds. But he should be able to spot the play of advancing the heart queen, hoping for a bare jack or nine with East. When he gets lucky, he can cash one club if he wants, pitching a heart, on which West can discard either a heart or a spade.

However, now declarer comes to hand with the second spade and exits with a diamond. If East wins, he must surrender the game-going tricks in clubs. If West wins, he has a spade to cash, but he can’t take more than one heart trick.

ANSWER:

Partner has bid out his shape, suggesting short hearts. Rather than bid three no-trump, it feels logical to me to temporize with three hearts now. I would raise a call of three spades or four clubs to game and pass a three-no-trump bid. If partner jumps to five clubs, I will surely bid slam.