The opening head was the 6D. The bidding was not too scientific but south ambitiously accepted partner's invitation call of 5H for a slam despite his poor holding of trumps. He reckoned that his top controls compensated for the slam to be bid. On the 6D to 4D, 9D won by south's QD, south paused to analyse the prospects. With a sure trump loser, he needed to pull in all other tricks for the slam to succeed. This meant getting the remaining black side suits going especially clubs. As south how would you have continued after your 10H is taken with the JH by east. East returns the 3S taken by the AS in hand by the declarer. Of course you ruff the 2D in dummy. South successfully finesses against east to play out all trumps. So far 7 tricks were played out leaving the following position of the 4 hands:-
Now place yourself in south's seat and plan your next move. You need all the tricks with no trumps left. There is a severe communication hassle for the clubs to run and the spade finesse is wrong. It looked as if the slam was not likely to succeed. But price found a way. Can you? Yes - the key play was the AD which squeezed west. Clearly west could not release either of her black cards. A club would make dummy's clubs run on the finesse of the JC. A spade discard would make declarer's spades good. In the actual play, west parted with 10S. Price next played AC and the 10C overtaking in dummy with JC, east discarding a diamond. After throwing 7S on KC, price led the 8S and it was again decision time - whether to finesse or play for the drop of the QS doubleton. Price calculated a 4 card diamond with west and 5 with east coupled with 4 trumps and singleton club to give him 3 spades. Leaving west with 4 spade - 4 - 4 - 1 hand since all diamonds were already discarded by west along with a spade. His last 2 spades had to be honors since his last spade discard was the 10S. So price rightly played the KS to fell QS from west and the slam came rolling in. At the other table the unsuccessful declarer played the ace of trumps and back to see his early collapse.
Let me end with an interesting bidding problem when you as south hold. What should be your rebid after your strong 2C opening gets a 3D response. When the hand was played, at one table south opened with 4NT, north responded 6C and south bid 6S. At the second table south leapt to 7S on partner's 3D response, on which his partner bid 7NT holding the following north hand.
East promptly doubled being on lead holding the AK of diamonds. Experts analyzing the hand prefers the C.A.B responses to an opening 2C. Thus here, when south opens 2C, north would reply with 3C to show the ace of clubs. If he held the AD, his reply would be 3D, with 2 aces, the response is 3NT and with no ace and about 8 points, the response is 2NT. In the above sequence in actual play, 7S was a gamble that could well have succeeded unless east made a lightener double debarring a club or trump lead. You see Bridge calls for skill at every stage.
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North South
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8 2 A K J 7
Q 10 9 4 A 8 6 5
4 A Q 2
K J 8 6 5 3 A 10
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S W N E
- - P P
2NT P 3C P
3H D 5H P
6H All Pass
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A K Q J 8 6
A K Q 8 7 6
3
-
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North West East South
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8 Q 10 9 5 K J 7
- - - -
- - K J 10 A
K J 8 6 5 Q 9 7 4 2 A 10
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North
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-
J 3
Q J 10 7 6 5
A K 6 4 2
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