Andrew:

Monte Carlo or bust?

After qualifying for the knockout stages [of the last World Championships for the Bermuda Bowl] by finishing 6th (out of 22) in the round-robin, the English Open Team drew the powerful Monaco squad in the quarterfinals. Sad to report, we lost. I certainly won’t blame bad luck, for we made too many costly mistakes. However there were a few moments where Lady Luck deserted us – take this marginal slam.

Board Teams
South Deals
None Vul

♠	J
♥	K 10 9 7
♦	A Q 6 5 3
♣	A Q 4

♠	K Q 10 9
♥	6 5 4 3
♦	J 9 2
♣	10 6

N
W		E
S

♠	A 8 6 5
♥	2
♦	K 10 8 4
♣	J 9 8 2

♠	7 4 3 2
♥	A Q J 8
♦	7
♣	K 7 5 3

West	North	East	South
	Forrester	Andrew
			Pass
Pass	1 ♦	Pass	1 ♥
Pass	3 ♠1	Pass	4 N2
5 ♣3	Pass	6 ♥	Pass
Pass	Pass

Splinter bid, showing a raise to 4♥ with a singleton (void) spade.
Four small cards is almost the best holding to have facing a splinter: just one loser and three ruffing tricks. South launches into Roman Key Card Blackwood.
Zero or three “aces” (K counts as an ace).

West (irritatingly) led a trump and the tall declarer surveyed his chances. Say I crossed to the ace of diamonds, ruffed a diamond, crossed to the queen of clubs and ruffed a third diamond. Probably no king of diamonds would have appeared (in the longer length). If I then crossed to the ace of clubs and ruffed the fourth diamond with my last trump, how would I cross to dummy to draw trumps and enjoy the long diamond? I couldn’t – the player without the king of diamonds would throw a club on the fourth diamond, his partner would then win the spade and give a club ruff.

So perhaps I should take the diamond finesse. But I was loath to go down at trick two (by seeing a diamond to the queen lose to the king).

I reverted to the first plan and sought an improvement. Aha! The penny dropped. Cross to the ace of diamonds, ruff a diamond, cross to the queen of clubs and ruff a diamond. If both opponents have followed to three diamonds but no king appeared, I now make the small change to my original plan of cashing the king of clubs before leading to dummy’s ace (key play).

If clubs split 3-3, I can now ruff a fourth diamond (with my last trump) and lead the long club throwing dummy’s spade. I succeed even on 4-1 trumps, as I must score the last four tricks in dummy withthe three trumps and the fifth diamond). I’ll make my slam if either the king of diamonds is trebleton or clubs are 3-3. (And experts love either-or lines of play).

Very disappointingly, though, after cashing the king of clubs and leading a third club to dummy, West ruffed. He led a second trump and I was soon conceding down two. There had been no way to win.

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Andrew:

Monte Carlo or bust?