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Little Clues can mean a lot.

Well, they can when you are in grand slam and have a decision to make without any help from the opponents’ bidding. They were silent!

 

West leads 9. Winning the trick is a great idea. East plays J. A nice-looking contract. It’s time to be careful, just in case of problems. What’s your plan? 

p.s. trumps do not break 5-0

A nice crisp auction to grand slam with 3 being a splinter agreeing diamonds and 3NT to play. North was persistent with Minorwood (4) and South showed the two missing key-cards (4NT) and then the K (6). That was enough for North who could sit back while their partner had to play the grand-slam. The only bad point of the dummy South saw was no trump jack.   

So, with a heart able to be ruffed in dummy and the fourth round of clubs taking care of the possible spade loser, it came down to playing trumps correctly if the suit broke 4-1.

The opening spade lead was suspicious but no more. It is standard to lead a trump against a grand slam. Why then did West choose a spade? Could they be looking at a singleton diamond or four headed by the jack? Either was possible and it is not clear from that how to play trumps. Yet, maybe East’s J did provide a small clue. Why did they play the jack? Maybe because they had to and if they were indeed shortish in spades, then maybe they were the player who was long in trumps.

So, did you play a diamond to the king at trick 2 and then Q at trick 3? I hope so:

 

South could then play three rounds of hearts, ruffing with T before playing dummy’s last trump and taking the marked trump finesse to secure 13 tricks. South could not know or risk that the J was from honour doubleton.

It would be nice to think that had West chosen to lead a club South would play one round of spades before testing trumps. There might be no extra clue given or there just might. Little clues can go a long way, like the difference between +1440 and -50. 

Stolen Bid?

 

Well, it looks like South has just done that! What are you going to do about it? It’s Teams style and your opposition are playing 5-card majors. Until Monday.

Richard Solomon

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