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Bridge 3/20
Another two-step three-trump routine
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First, take North's seat. You deal and open one diamond. After pass - one spade - pass, what would you rebid? What would your answer be if you had the same hand but the club king was the two, leaving you with only 13 high-card points? Or the diamond two metamorphosed into the diamond queen, giving you 18 points?
    With the 13-point hand, a minimum opening bid, you should raise to two spades. With the strong 18-point hand, you should jump to three clubs, forcing to game, partner's response having increased the value of your hand. You hope to bid three spades on the third round, which would describe your hand perfectly.
    With the hand in the diagram, though, you should rebid two clubs. You hope to get past this round and support spades on the third round, which in principle would show 3-1-5-4 distribution and 15-17 high-card points.
    Here, South rebids two diamonds over two clubs. Then, after North continues with two spades, South, with five trumps and two aces, has enough to jump to four spades.
    West leads the heart king. Declarer wins with his ace, ruffs a heart on the board, plays a diamond to his ace, trumps his last heart, and continues with the spade king. East takes his ace and returns his remaining diamond, but South wins with dummy's king, cashes three clubs to discard his last diamond, and loses only two more spades.
    Finally, West's lead was ill-chosen. Since dummy was marked with a singleton heart, West probably should have chosen a trump, the jack killing the contract.
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