Smell a game, bid that game

Look at today’s North hand. South opens one club, West passes, North responds one diamond, East intervenes with one heart, South rebids two clubs, and West passes once more. What should North rebid? This situation faced six players at Bridge Base Online. Two with a malfunctioning olfactory organ passed; three raised with a slight sniff to three clubs. One player noticed the strong aroma of game and leapt straight to five clubs! West led the heart ace and shifted to the spade eight. South took the trick with his ace, played a diamond to dummy’s king, returned to the club ace and led another diamond. Declarer anticipated that West would be longer in diamonds than East, but even if West had queen-fourth, the contract still had chances. So, South put up dummy’s ace and was happy to see the queen appear. The spade nine disappeared on the diamond jack, and declarer conceded just two tricks. This was a top because they were the only pair in game. If West had had queen-fourth of diamonds, declarer would have needed him to have only one club. Then, after ruffing out the diamond queen, South could have trumped his heart king on the board and discarded his spade loser on the diamond jack. Finally, note that three notrump would also make here.