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Protection!

You sit there thinking about how to bid your potentially nice 20 pointer. What should you open? Well, that decision is taken away from you by an opening 1S bid on your left. Then, out comes 4H from your partner and suddenly your choice of actions has changed!

 

 

 

What do you expect of partner’s bid? It would be nicer if they were vulnerable because then your expectation would be greater. However, at equal nil vulnerability, they should have something reasonable and that is surely plenty of hearts and since you hold K, they should have the ace, please!

It would be lovely to try 6 and forbid the lead of a spade! Well, you can in a way do that by putting West on lead against a slam. You have 2 choices here. So, hoping to run both red suits for lots of tricks, you try 6NT.

A spade lead now would be handy but West chooses 4. This is what you see:

 

No outside honours alas but at least a decent heart suit. 7 heart and 6 diamond tricks would be lovely. You could throw away all your black suit honours! Life, and playing bridge hands, is never that easy! What if an opponent held Jxxx? No, you must play this hand out. No claim!

Remembering to put up A at trick 1, you start to cash 7 rounds of hearts. West started with a singleton heart but dummy’s hearts are just good enough. However, the singleton heart increases the chances of West holding 4 diamonds. So, let the discarding  begin, watching what West throws. After 6 rounds of hearts, the position might be:

On the last heart, declarer discards 8 and West throws K. Next comes a club to the ace and if West throws the Q, they are end-played by declarer leading K into leading a diamond to declarer’s advantage. We can also see what happens if West throws a diamond.

At the table, it did not come to that as West discarded a diamond on the run of the hearts. Whatever West discarded, South could always make their contract. A reward for a very enterprising bid from South.

Great protection.

Here are the 4 hands. 

West Deals None Vul	♠ 4 2 ♥ A Q J 10 8 5 2 ♦ 6 ♣ 8 6 4
♠ A Q J 9 8 3 ♥ 4 ♦ J 9 5 3 ♣ K 9	N W   E S	♠ 7 5 ♥ 9 7 6 3 ♦ 4 2 ♣ Q 10 7 5 3
	♠ K 10 6 ♥ K ♦ A K Q 10 8 7 ♣ A J 2

 

 

In the Open section at the Gold Coast Teams, 7 South players bid and made 6NT but at all bar one table, the opening lead gave the declarer their 12 tricks immediately with a diamond or Q lead.

Richard Solomon

 Our JIN Club hands resume next Friday. 

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