Column 7B94 (3-30-86) by Richard Pavlicek

A Crucial Guess

6 by South

N-S Vul	K 7 6 4 K 8 2 K 9 6 2 9 2
9 8 5 2 10 6 4 7 3 Q 8 5 4		Q 3 A Q J 9 7 5 3 J 10 5 4 —
Lead: 4	A J 10 — A Q 8 A K J 10 7 6 3

West Pass Pass Pass All Pass

North 2 4 4 NT

East 1 3 Pass Pass

South Dbl 4 4 6

Kay, South, doubled East’s opening bid and Kaplan, North, made an aggressive jump to two spades to invite game. When East competed to three hearts, South introduced his powerful club suit and North bid his diamond suit. South forced the bidding again with a heart cue-bid; North showed his heart stopper; and South finally jumped to the excellent club slam.

After ruffing the opening heart lead and cashing a high club, declarer conceded the inevitable trump loser to West’s queen and ruffed the heart continuation. The remaining trumps were drawn (discarding two spades from dummy) and three rounds of diamonds were cashed, ending in the South hand. Declarer was disappointed to find East with the long diamonds since the contract would otherwise be a cinch. (If West held the long diamonds, cashing the last trump would squeeze both West and East so that neither could keep three spades in the ending.)

As it was, everything depended on the spade guess. Declarer knew from counting the hand that West began with four spades and East only two; and this favored West to hold the queen. But then there was East’s opening bid of one heart, which favored East to hold the queen. The reliability of the latter assumption was uncertain because East’s choice of bids was a tactical matter and he might not hold the spade queen.

Finally, after some deliberation, Kay got it right to win his slam contract and the match… as our hearts skipped a beat.