BRIDGE

The play of this deal contains two separate but closely related themes – see if you can spot them.

South bid one more for the road with his monstrous hand while hoping he hadn’t landed his partnership in the ditch.

Note that the quickly elevated start to the auction contributed greatly to the final decision: by the time South had shown his suit and North, forced to do something, had raised to game, there simply wasn’t room to find out if North could provide any of the stuff required to make six diamonds a particularly good contract.

As might we all, South closed his eyes and bid six.

What eventually made six diamonds a “good” slam was South’s expert play to bring it home.

He won the club ace (heart discard) and ruffed a club (key play).

When the ace of diamonds brought forth the Jack from West, declarer took that at face value (Restricted Choice plus West’s vigorous preempt marked his hand as highly distributional such that a singleton diamond was very likely) and planned on a different kind of trump finesse.

Three rounds of spades and a spade ruff to ruff one more club in the closed hand. Finally, ace and a heart to give up the lead and collect three more diamond tricks on the way back via a trump coup (Theme # One).

But did you notice Theme # Two: Did you wonder how South’s ruff of the fourth round of spades succeeded? Yes, East had missed his chance when he discarded a heart and not a spade on the second round of clubs!