From the hand of a teenager

Fran Lebowitz quipped, “Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.”

Of course, she said that before teenagers had their own phones.

This deal was defended by Henry Rose, a 16-yearold English boy. He was competing in a training event for the England under20 team with his partner, Jasmine Bakhshi, who is 15 and first played internationally just after her 11th birthday. Bakhshi and Rose will be competing in this year’s world junior championships. It was initially described by Michael Byrne, who lives in Manchester.

South opened with the gambling three no-trump. This showed a solid sevencard or longer minor, but usually with no side ace, king or void.

The textbook lead against this opening bid is an ace.

You hope, once you see the dummy, to know how to defeat the contract. So Rose led the club ace, but what did he do next?

If you like the idea of utilizing this rare bid, responder usually passes or (if unhappy with three no-trump) bids four clubs, which opener passes if that is his suit; otherwise, he corrects to four diamonds.

Rose realized that his side had to take four spade tricks. But he had to make sure that the suit didn’t block. At trick two, he led the spade nine. This would normally be top of nothing, but East knew that South did not have a side-suit ace. She took dummy’s 10 with her queen and returned the spade three. West won and led the spade six through dummy’s jack-seven into the jaws of East’s king-eight. Cute.