Let’s start the New Year with Board 23 where bidding the grand slam should have been relatively straightforward.  Only one pair bid it, so well done them.

West opens 2C, she has an excellent spade suit and only 3 losers.

East gives the positive response of 2NT and West continues by showing her spade suit.

East now bids 4H.  This cannot reasonably be a suggestion that hearts be trumps: with a long heart suit East would have bid hearts first time around.  It is a cue bid agreeing spades.

In response to 4NT East shows just the one key card.

West now bids 5D, a bid which asks whether the SQ is held.  Without the SQ East would bid 5S.  With the SQ she bids 6C to show not only the SQ but also the CK.

West can count 12 top tricks: 6 spades, 1 heart, 3 diamonds and 2 clubs.

The safer contract is 7S and in a teams match this should be bid.  He concern is the diamond suit.  In spades, if East holds 4 diamonds then there should be an extra diamond trick to give 13 overall.  However, if East holds fewer then there should be a diamond ruff.

In duplicate the extra 10 points for the 7NT contract makes that worthwhile.  Only if one opponent held either Jxxx or Txxx in diamonds would there be a problem.

Now let’s turn to Board 1.

On the auction suggested North is on lead.  It is much the same whether he leads the SK or the CK.  I’ll assume the lead is the SK.

Dummy comes down and West counts her losers: none in spades, maybe 2 in hearts, 1 in diamonds and 2 in clubs.  Discarding a diamond won’t help but a club discard reduces the number of losers there.  The contract now hinges on keeping the Heart losers to just the one.

North has bid to 3S despite South passing; it is probable that both red kings are there.

How should the hearts be played?

West must resist the temptation to play the HJ.  If the HJ is played then North covers and South’s HT will win a trick.  The better play is to lead a low heart and put in the HQ.  If by any chance South had held the HK declarer would then have be left with the HA and HJ to clear trumps on the normal 3/2 split.

As North has shown great length in the bidding it is best to play North for Kx in hearts.  The HA, as hoped, drops the HK and West makes plus one.

The traveller shows that only two E/W pairs played in hearts and both times East played the hand.  Did no one make a Michaels cue bid?

Now let’s consider declarer’s play on Board 47.

Let’s assume North starts with a neutral opening lead of the H9.

On seeing dummy West’s reaction must be to try to keep South from getting the lead.  A spade from South would not be good news.  Despite North having most of the strength it is South which is the danger hand.

The heart lead is won in dummy and the DA led to the D8 and the DJ.  The Principle of Restricted Choice indicates that North is more likely to have started with a singleton DJ rather than DJT doubleton (I wrote about this just a week or two ago).  Also, North is the safe hand.  Therefore, The D4 is led, South plays low, the finesse is taken and the D9 wins. 

Declarer now has 5 diamond tricks but no need to take them yet.  It is time to turn her attention to the clubs.  The play here is to play a low club towards the CQ.  If it holds North is assumed to hold the CA.  Therefore, South is then finessed for the CJ.

Declarer makes 1 spade, 4 hearts, 5 diamonds and 2 clubs for a grand total of 12 tricks.

Declarer’s good play was based on three aspects of declarer play.  They were seeing that North was the safe hand, finesses should be taken into North’s hand: invoking the Principle of Restricted Choice to get all 5 diamond tricks and to play towards the CQ which allowed for a finesse of the CJ through South’s hand.  None of these plays is elementary but thet are all absolutely standard.  It is a pity that not one declarer made 12 tricks.