Goren on Bridge

Neither vulnerable, North deals

Would you like an explanation of the auction? We thought so. North-South were playing the weak no-trump, hence the opening bid. North treated his hand as worth 12 points. Two clubs and two diamonds were Stayman and the response denying a major. Three clubs was natural and game forcing. Three diamonds and four diamonds were both cue bids, showing the ace and king. Four clubs set the trump suit as clubs. Four no-trump was Keycard Blackwood, favored by most tournament players and five clubs showed one key card, among the four aces and the king of trumps. South already knew how many aces North had, but a feature of Keycard Blackwood is that it allows you to find out about the queen of trumps. Five diamonds asked for the queen, obviously looking for a possible grand slam. North, with a minimum for his opening bid, liked his queen of clubs and his source of tricks in diamonds. He expressed his opinion by leaping to seven clubs — an excellent auction.

There was nothing to the play. South won the opening trump lead and cashed another high trump. Had trumps split poorly, South would have risked cashing two high spades and ruffing a spade with the queen of clubs. He would return to his hand with the ace of hearts, draw any outstanding trumps, and discard his remaining spade and the queen of hearts on dummy’s diamonds. The 2-2 trump split led to an early claim.

The remarkable thing about this auction is that North, Christian Lahrmann from Denmark, was only 13 years old when he played this deal!

Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001. Email responses may be sent to tcaeditors@tribune.com. © 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.