Sunday, July 8, 2012

Jennbridge: A First *Updated*

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 4holding:

♠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!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did the diamond loser go?

Jennifer Jones said...

From Dee: By establishing the 5th heart. Excellent question!

Anonymous said...

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.

David Goldfarb said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David Goldfarb said...

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.)

Anonymous said...

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

Jennifer Jones said...

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."