Goren on Bridge

Today’s deal is from a recent competition between a team from Germany and a team from Sweden. The worldwide popularity of the Multi Two Diamond convention, where a two-diamond opening shows a weak two-bid in either major, has freed up two-spade and two-heart openings for other meanings. A standard part of the modern defense to weak two-bids is to use a jump to four of a minor to show a good hand with the bid minor and the unbid major. The auction was the same at both tables.

At the other table, East won the opening spade lead with the ace and shifted to a diamond. Declarer won with the ace and cashed the king. He then tried for a heart ruff in dummy by cashing the ace and king of hearts. Alas for him, East ruffed and shifted smartly to the king of clubs, leaving declarer a trick short. Down one.

The poor split in hearts was quite likely, given the opening bid, and South should have taken precautions, as demonstrated at the other table. After the same start, declarer cashed only one high heart before crossing to dummy with the ace of clubs. East was helpless when South led dummy’s last heart. Ruffing would do him no good, so he discarded. South won and ruffed a heart with the 10 of trumps. He then ruffed a club, drew the last trump, and claimed, conceding one heart trick to the defense.

Nicely played!

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