FROM TEACHER TO TEACHING DEAL

This week, let’s look at instructive deals sent to me by Steve Conrad of Manhasset, Long Island. Since he retired, he has been teaching bridge on cruise ships — but not at the moment, of course.

This deal occurred in a matchpointed pairs event. How should South play in four spades after West leads the club queen?

Three diamonds was New Minor Forcing: North showed three-card spade support, and South raised to game.

When the dummy came down, South saw that three no-trump was easy, but that would have been worth only 400 points. If he could make four spades, that would be 420 points and outscore everyone in three no-trump. But from where could declarer generate a 10th trick?

There were actually three sensible choices. We’ll look at them over the next couple of days.

Let’s initially consider diamonds. At first glance, getting an extra trick required finding an unlikely 3-3 split. But that wasn’t necessarily true, because without a trump lead, it was possible to ruff declarer’s fourth diamond on the board.

Win with dummy’s club king, cash the diamond ace and play another diamond.

Suppose West shifts belatedly to a trump. Win in hand and lead another diamond. East may play a second spade, but take that in hand and ruff the last diamond with the spade king to generate a sixth trump trick.

Yes, that line of play would not have worked if West had led a trump at trick one, which he might well have done. Tomorrow, we will look at what happens after a spade lead.