Bridge by Phillip Alder

SAY YOUR PIECE, THEN HOLD YOUR PEACE

This is an interesting comment about a potential partner: The wrong one will find you in peace and leave you in pieces, but the right one will find you in pieces and lead you to peace.

At the bridge table, if you do not keep your peace at the right moment, you could leave your partnership’s score in pieces.

Look at today’s North hand. Partner opens one spade, and West passes. Do you agree with the fourspade response? After that, East doubles, South passes, and West advances with five diamonds. What about North’s five-spade rebid?

I do not mind North’s “weak freak” raise to four spades. He would normally have had a singleton or void, but a slam was unlikely, and he might have silenced the opponents when they should have been in the auction.

Here, East had enough to double. Then West should have advanced with four notrump to ask his partner to pick a minor.

Finally, North should have passed over five diamonds because his hand was full of losers. If he had, South would have doubled five diamonds, and North-South could have been plus 500, taking the spade ace, the diamond ace, the club ace-king and a club ruff in the North hand. That would have been better than making four spades. How did five spades get on? Any lead was going to defeat that. At the table, West chose the heart six. East won with his jack, cashed the ace and continued with the heart eight, which West ruffed with the spade king.