Contract Bridge

This deal occurred in a club duplicate game, and the bidding is recorded as it took place. Perhaps you wouldn’t have bid six hearts with West’s hand, but in a sense, West was right. South would have made six clubs, scoring 1,370 points, whereas East would have gone down only three — 500 points — at six hearts doubled.

North’s seven- club bid is certainly questionable. He could have passed and left the decision to South, who was probably in a better position to judge whether to double or go on. But North feared that if the East-West hands were as distributional as his own, East might make six hearts.

West led a heart, and South proceeded to make the grand slam despite his apparently certain spade loser. He ruffed the heart in dummy, drew two rounds of trump and then cashed five diamond tricks, discarding a spade from his hand. Two more rounds of trump, ending in dummy, brought about this position:

The lead of the ten of clubs from dummy left East with no recourse. If he discarded a spade, South would discard a heart; if he discarded a heart, South would discard a spade. Either way, South would win the last three tricks.

Note that an opening spade lead by West would have defeated the contract by cutting a critically important link between the North and South hands.