Here's a hand recently sent from Dee Berry, an expert player, teacher and writer from Washington.
Dee writes: "My RHO opened one heart (not someone who has ever psyched against me!)
and I held:
♠KQxx
♥AJxxx
♦Axx
♣A
A double, perforce, was the only forcing bid I could make. Partner made a nice jump to 4♠ holding:
♠AJxxxx
♥x
♦Kxx
♣xxx
I Blackwooded and
upon learning he held ♦K (as well as ♠A) I bid 7 spades.
First
time in my whole life I bid a grand slam after the opponent opened the
bidding! (My RHO held: ♠x ♥Q10xxx ♦QJ10x ♣KQJ.)"
Great story Dee! Feel free to send me your interesting bridge stories, hands or questions.
Update from Dee: "In truth my hand was even bigger than the one I erroneously sent you. It included the heart K---which meant a very easy pitch. "
Thanks Dee. So now the mystery is solved. How did she make it? Where was the ♥K? Did she make it on a red-suit squeeze as suggested by some sharp-eyed readers?
See you at the table!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
How did the diamond loser go?
From Dee: By establishing the 5th heart. Excellent question!
Except that meant that the opener, looking at 5 Hearts in dummy, had to pitch a Heart? Cause I am not sure how else that could work, unless the Heart spots were good enough.
If declarer had the D9, she could make it on a red-suit squeeze: win the lead (presumably a heart or a trump), draw trumps, crossruff two hearts and two clubs, then run trumps to come down to this ending:
--
J
Kx
--
--
--
A9x
--
The opening bidder would have to hold a heart guard, and so would have to come down to 2 diamonds, and the D9 becomes a winner. (A diamond lead would have broken up the entry position for the squeeze, but that would be hard to find.)
If dummy held the diamond 9, or if declarer held the diamond 9 AND dummy held the diamond 8, the opening bidder is in a red suit squeeze
Thanks for all of your comments. Dee has the last word--which I include in my revised post (above).
1 more hand from Dee: "Another fascinating slam hand from this weekend's tourney: AKQxx/void/ AQJ10xxx/A. Easy to open 2C and rebid diamonds after partner's 2D response (showing at least an A or a K). Pard then bids hearts (expected) and one tries spades and pard rebids 3NT. I bid 6D and wanted to SOB when partner couldn't raise to 7 holding xx Kxxxx Kxx Kxx."
Post a Comment