A small slam in Montreal.
Bridge Column for October 4, 2002, Harvey Bernstein
East-West vulnerable.  South deals.
                              North
                              S: A 6              
                              H: Void        
                              D: A 9 7 4 3   
                              C: J 10 9 7 4 2 
            West                             East
            S: 9 5 3                         S: Q J 10 8 4   
            H: A K 10                        H: J 9 8 6 4  
            D: K 10 6 5 2                    D: Q J               
            C: 6 5                           C: Q           
                              South                         
                              S: K 7 2 
                              H: Q 7 5 3 2  
                              D: 8         
                              C: A K 8 3  
          The Bidding:  
                  South    West    North    East                  
                   1H      Pass     1NT     Pass
                   2C      Pass     6C      Pass
                   Pass    Pass
     Patrick Jourdain of Wales, who has just retired from the
position of editor of the Bulletin of the International Bridge
Press Association (IBPA) after twenty years of service, paired up
with Rosemary Farr-Jones of Australia to participate in the Plate
Trans-National Mixed Pair competition at the World Championships
in Montreal on August 17-19.
     On this deal, Jourdain held the East cards.  He recognized
his opponent in the South seat to be Bill Gates of Seattle, the
founder of Microsoft, Inc.  Gates's partner, in the North seat,
was Sharon Osberg of San Francisco.  Jourdain wrote this hand up
for the September IBPA Bulletin.
     Osberg's one no trump bid was alerted by Gates as being
forcing for one round.  The two club bid was natural but he did
not have to have that good of a club suit - in fact, in their
system, there are situations where he might have only two clubs. 
Fortunately, this was not one of those times.  Osberg decided
that it would be too difficult to work her way to the slam that
she felt they should be in, and so, took a very direct route.
     The opening lead was a small spade.  Declarer's problem was
how to take advantage of a favorable layout in either red suit.
     Gates won the spade lead in hand, laid down one top trump on
which he noted the fall of the queen.  He trumped a heart,
returned to his hand with a club, trumped a second heart and saw
the king fall from West.  He trumped a diamond, trumped a third
heart (seeing the ace fall), and then trumped another diamond. 
East showed out on this trick.  
     Even though Gates was not able to set up a long diamond
trick, he was able to cash the queen of hearts for the twelfth
trick.  Six clubs, making, was worth 369 out of 414 matchpoints,
or 89% of the matchpoints.    
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Bernstein is a free-lance writer in Solon.