Goren on Bridge

Today’s deal is from the recent Vanderbilt Knockout Teams held in Philadelphia. North-South were John Hurd and Joel Wooldridge, respectively, from New York.

Hurd-Wooldridge have an excellent record as a partnership over the last 10 to 20 years. They favor an aggressive style, as evidenced by South’s decision to open the bidding on a hand that many, if not most, would pass. Wooldridge made another unusual decision at his second turn. He had outstanding heart support, but a bare minimum hand. The hand would probably be even worse with an opening spade lead through his king, so Wooldridge chose to bid two no-trump, rather than raise, to protect his king of spades. Hurd got with the program right away by raising no-trump rather than rebidding his hearts. Wooldridge quickly claimed 10 tricks after the opening spade lead. “Would you have raised me with five-card support?” asked Hurd, tongue firmly in cheek.

In the replay, South passed as dealer and North-South reached the normal contract of four hearts, played by North. The opening spade lead saw the defense take the first two spade tricks and a spade ruff. The defense had a club trick still to come for down one.

Great bidding by Hurd-Wooldridge. This result helped their team to victory over one of the top teams in the country. 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. © 2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.