Love All

Dealer South
 

	NORTH ª KJ4 © AQ74 ¨ Q32 § 98
WEST ª 65 © J1053 ¨ K95 § Q752		EAST ª 9 © K986 ¨ J1084 § J1043
	SOUTH ª AQ10873 © 2 ¨ A76 § AK6

One complaint made by social bridge players is that most expert bidding is far too complicated for them to comprehend. The above deal, which occurred during a recent Wallingford Bridge Club duplicate competition, tends to show otherwise. After South has opened with a bid of one spade and North has raised to four spades (with or without bidding the heart suit first), those social bridge players brave enough to bid again will inevitably launch into the Blackwood four and five no-trumps convention to ask for aces and kings (known derisively by the experts as "wielding the blunt instrument") and finally settle in six spades when partner reveals the remaining ace, but only one king. In the expert game, South will also open one spade and North will normally raise directly to four spades, showing seven losers - usually with a maximum of three controls (Ace=2, King=1). With a stronger hand, more controls and support for the opening suit, responder would have chosen a more indirect route to game, such as a jump take-out, a splinter bid, a delayed game raise, or the Swiss Convention. After North's simple quantitative raise to four spades, South will add his five losers to his partner's seven, deduct the total from eighteen and arrive at the answer six, the level of the recommended final contract. He will therefore bid a direct six spades, satisfied that the limitation on North's controls and overall strength precludes a grand slam. In a normal expert auction, a small slam would therefore be reached in three simple bids: One Spade - Four Spades - Six Spades.

Having bid the small slam, how do we make it if a black suit is led? After drawing two rounds of trumps, we can count eleven tricks, including a club ruff in dummy, so we need to develop a twelfth trick. The solution is a classic case of combining options. We have a twelfth trick available if either the ace-queen of hearts lies over the king, or if the queen of diamonds lies over the king. It is, however, imperative that we play a low diamond towards the queen before touching hearts. If this loses to the king and we have not been foolish enough to play the ace of diamonds first, we still have the heart finesse to fall back on. If we try the heart finesse first and it fails we cannot test the diamond suit without conceding a second trick. On this occasion the queen of diamonds brings home the gravy.

LOCAL NEWS: The Harwell Cup (Oxfordshire’s Invitational Teams of Four event) was won byWallingford, represented by Peter Baxter, Debbie Roberts, Mike Brown and Pat Rhodes-Fisher, with Abingdon, represented by Sara Tulip, John Clifford, Nigel Wilkes and Clive Keep, coming a close second.

Wantage Bridge Club meets in the Civic Hall on Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm. New members welcome. Ring Alan Parker (01235 763842) for details. Evening Classes In September, Beginners' classes start at St Birinus School, Didcot on Thursdays at 7.30 p.m. Improvers' classes start at Didcot Girls School on Wednesdays at 7.00 p.m. I look forward to meeting some new faces and a few old ones! Full details are given in the Didcot Community Education 1999 brochure, or ring 01235 812002 for further details.

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