Goren on Bridge

South in today’s deal was Michal Klukowski, from Poland, who has several World Championships to his credit despite still being under 30 years of age. He currently lives in Switzerland and plays for one of the world’s top professional teams. We are not sure as to the meaning of North’s three-club bid, but they were not playing a standard system and it must have been something descriptive about his hand. It certainly did not ask Klukowski to make the most ridiculous bid he could think of.

Klukowski covered the jack of diamonds lead with dummy’s queen, winning the trick as East correctly withheld his king. A diamond to the ace was ruffed by West, and dummy won the heart shift, perforce, with the ace. Klukowski then ruffed a diamond with the nine of spades. The contract would still have had decent chances if West had been able to over-ruff with the queen, but West discarded a heart instead.

Klukowski cashed the ace of spades and crossed to dummy with the king of spades. He left the queen of spades outstanding and ruffed another diamond, felling the king. He crossed back to dummy with the ace of clubs and started to cash dummy’s established diamonds, discarding two clubs. East could ruff whenever he liked, but he could not prevent Klukowski from taking 10 tricks.

Well played!

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.

© 2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.