Can you find the right play?
Bridge Column for December 23, 2006, Harvey Bernstein
Special To The Plain Dealer
East-West vulnerable.  South deals.
                              North
                              S: Q 6              
                              H: 9 6         
                              D: Q J 5 3     
                              C: 9 6 5 4 2
            West                             East
            S: J 5 3                         S: 7 2          
            H: Q J 10 5                      H: 8 7 4 3    
            D: K 10 7                        D: 9 8 6 4 2         
            C: K J 7                         C: 8 3         
                              South                         
                              S: A K 10 9 8 4
                              H: A K 2      
                              D: A         
                              C: A Q 10   
          The Bidding:  
                  South    West    North    East                  
                   2C      Pass     2D      Pass
                   2S      Pass     2NT     Pass
                   3S      Pass     4S      Pass
                   4NT     Pass     5C      Pass
                   5NT     Pass     6C      Pass
                   6S      Pass     Pass    Pass
          Opening lead: QH
     The auction is fairly straight-forward.  Two clubs is a
stong, game-forcing, opening bid.  Two diamonds was "waiting". 
Two spades was natural.  Two no-trump promised some values. 
North could have bid three clubs, which would have been a second
negative, but did not.  North has also shown less than three
spades.
     South now bids three spades and North raises to four.  Four
no-trump asks for aces and North indicates that he has none. 
Five no-trump promises that South has all four aces and asks for
kings.  Again, North indicates that he has none.  At this point,
South bids the small slam.
     West leads the queen of hearts and South wins the ace. 
Declarer must now decide how to proceed.  One line of play
would be to use the two entries to the dummy to take two
club finesses.  As you can see, this line will fail.  Is there a
better line of play?
     Actually, there is.  At trick two, play the ace of diamonds. 
Follow this with the king of hearts and then trump a heart in the
dummy.  Now, lead the queen of diamonds and when East follows
low, discard the ten of clubs.  West wins this trick and plays a
trump.  Win the queen of spades and play the jack of diamonds,
discarding the queen of clubs.  A club to the ace allows declarer
to draw the outstanding trump and claim twelve tricks.
     If East covers the queen of diamonds with the king, declarer
should trump and play a spade to the queen in dummy.  The jack of
diamonds allows declarer to discard the ten of clubs.  A club to
the queen loses to the king, but that is the only trick lost and
the slam comes home.
     There is one more point to make on this hand.  Given the
auction, could West make a better opening lead?  While the queen
of hearts is an attractive card, North is known to have less than
three spades.  A spade lead, reducing the number of trumps in the
dummy, forces declarer to use an entry prematurely, and dooms the
contract to failure

     Congratulations to the following local players who have
achieved new levels of success in their bridge careers.
     Fred Eberlin of Lyndhurst has passed the 2,500 masterpoint 
level and is now a gold life master.    
     Charlotte Friedman of Lyndhurst has passed the 1,000 
masterpoint level and is a silver life master.
     Betty Hollister of Gates Mills has passed the 500
masterpoint level and is a bronze life master.
_______________________________________________________
Bernstein is a free-lance writer in Solon. 
To reach Harvey Bernstein:
hjb0416@yahoo.com