NEW CANADIAN BRIDGE

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

South ruffed the diamond continuation and played a spade to the queen. East grabbed the king, cashed the king of hearts and exited with a spade. Declarer extracted the last trump and claimed the contract, N-S +620.

North's responsive double had uncovered the 4-4 spade fit and North promptly moved on to the major suit game that could not be defeated on this layout. Trump divided 3-2 and a club ruff was not available.

West should leap to four diamonds as a roadblock, in my opinion. North would double again but East might then consider a sacrifice when South ventures four spades. East loses two clubs, a spade and a heart in five diamonds doubled for a loss of only 500 points.

This would be a better result than the actual one but whether this would translate to an equitable matchpoint award is questionable. It is far from clear that a majority of the N-S pairs would uncover the 4-4 spade fit and bid game on this deal.

It is possible that quite a few pairs would land in clubs where there are three certain losers.