BRIDGE

Not all “out of the blue” sacrifice attempts will end as disastrously as Thursday’s entry did. Courtesy of Surrey, B.C.’S Dr. Sam Krikler (South) here’s a high-level bidding adventure with a totally serendipitous outcome for the “savers”.

The auction took a predictable course for its early rounds: South showed real diamond length with his second-round double and then offered clubs, a suit greatly preferred by North. And then, East really couldn’t believe that once again the five-level should have belonged to his opponents, just not for the usual reasons!

Not that he expected five hearts to get severely bruised: decent hearts and an outside ace would make taking eleven tricks a breeze. Despite his partner’s sparse overcall (the kind we all make, yes?), the defenders would have had to find the spade ruff for down two.

But Greg Morse in the North seat reconsidered both offensive and defensive prospects when five hearts came back to him. Maybe the vulnerable five hearts would make as there did seem to be a lot of distribution round the table and how bad could six clubs be with his partner showing lots of minor-suit cards?

Not bad at all as the dummy was just exactly what the Doctor ordered: after the ace of hearts and a spade shift from West, South won dummy’s ace, drew trumps in two rounds and had no trouble setting up his diamond suit after East showed out on the second round.

North-south’s only postdeal lament: when they sacrifice, they usually get doubled – why not this time?