Contract Bridge

This deal occurred in a team-offour match, but what happened at the two tables could just as easily have taken place in a rubberbridge game. At one table, the bidding went as shown. East won the heart lead with the ace and returned a heart, and the defense quickly ran off six heart tricks — down two despite North-South’s combined 31 high-card points.

It is hard to blame South for the sad outcome. Looking at only his 13 cards, his three-notrump rebid was surely the most attractive choice. Three notrump would be the winning bid in the overwhelming majority of hands. Had North held, say, the jack of hearts instead of the K-J of diamonds and queen of spades — a much weaker hand — nine tricks would have been certain. Or if the opponents’ hearts had been divided differently, the notrump game would easily have been made.

It may be argued that South should have bid three clubs instead of three notrump, and five clubs might then have been reached. The trouble with this contention is that three clubs is merely invitational, and a laydown game might be missed if

North passed.

At the other table, the bidding started exactly the same way. But the North player at this table obviously valued his hand much more highly than the first North, because he raised South’s three notrump directly to six notrump.

The six-notrump bid paid off very handsomely. West thought it was too dangerous to lead a heart from the K-J against such strong bidding, so he opted for the “safe” lead of the ten of spades. South then had no trouble collecting all the tricks to bring his team a net gain of 1,670 points on the deal.