FRANK STEWART BRIDGE

EYE ON THE BALL

One of our club’s senior members came to me after a poor session in a duplicate game. “When you get older,” he said, “they say your memory is the first ... er ... something or other.”

Pastimes such as bridge (and crossword puzzles and logic/math puzzles) preserve mental acuity. South should make today’s slam, but only if he maintains focus. South wins the first club with the king and leads the king of spades. Say East wins and returns a spade. Declarer takes the jack and queen and cashes his three heart tricks. East discards a spade.

Distribution

South next takes his queen of clubs. He is maneuvering to get a count of the defenders’ distribution — and he succeeds when East discards another spade.

South then knows that East started with six spades, two hearts, one club — and four diamonds. So South leads a diamond to the ace and returns a diamond to his ten — the percentage play. He can cash the queen and win the last two tricks with the ace of clubs and king of diamonds.

Daily Question You hold:

♠ K54 ♥ Q 10 8 ♦ A K62 ♣A

K 5. You open one diamond, your partner responds one spade, you jump to 2NT and he bids three diamonds. What do you say?

This is a basic situation. You already showed a balanced hand with about 19 points, so to bid 3NT would send the same message twice. Your duty is to show threecard support for partner’s major suit. Bid three spades. With stronger spades, you could jump to four spades.

Answer: East dealer Neither side vulnerable