Contract Bridge

The cuebid of an opponent’s suit theoretically shows either a void or the ace of that suit, but there are times when the cuebid is used to show a big hand even when the bidder does not have the suit under control. Here is an example of such a case.

North had too good a hand for a simple raise to game after South had freely bid three hearts. The outlook was certainly slammish — North had 19 high- card points — but he had no idea what his partner had in diamonds. He therefore cuebid diamonds to alert South to the possibility of a slam.

But since South had minimum values for his previous bid, he signed off with four hearts. Still not satisfied, North made another try, this time by cuebidding spades. South could now no longer ignore his partner’s persistently strong bidding, so he bid four notrump ( Blackwood) and continued on to six hearts after North showed three aces.

All this fine bidding came to naught, however, when South bungled the play. West led the nine of diamonds, and South followed low from dummy. This proved to be fatal when East played the deuce on the nine, an obvious request for West to shift to another suit.

Looking at seven spades in his own hand and three in dummy, West had no problem finding a spade shift, and East ruffed to put the slam down one. Had declarer covered the diamond nine with the ten, he would have made the slam.

Actually, after South bid six hearts, East should have made a Lightner double to ask for an unusual opening lead, in which case West’s virtually automatic spade lead would have sealed South’s fate beyond recall.