Last month, about a mile from where I live, there was a sign flashing: "County Sheriff Enforces Aggressive Driving." Hmm!
If you bid aggressively, you should know how to play the cards. In this deal, you reach seven spades. After West leads the club king to your ace, how would you try to bring home the grand slam?
South should open one spade. His hand has great potential, but only if partner has spade support.
North's response was the Jacoby Forcing Raise. It was an overbid — a three-spade game-invitational limit raise was sufficient. And South, after using Blackwood for aces, should have asked for kings, stopping in six spades when North showed none.
There are only 12 tricks: eight spades, one heart, two diamonds and one club. You must establish dummy's fifth heart. This requires hearts to split 4-3. You plan to ruff three hearts in your hand and return to dummy to cash the 13th heart. This means that you need four dummy entries: three for heart ruffs and one to reach the new heart winner. These must be the heart ace and three trumps. So you must be careful with the spade two. Sit on it or put it in your pocketbook.
Cash your spade king, play your heart to dummy's ace, and ruff a heart high (i.e., not with the two). Play a high trump to dummy's jack, ruff a heart high, return to dummy with another high trump, and ruff a third heart high. Finally, retrieve the spade two, lead it to dummy's four, and cash the heart six, discarding your club jack. Beautiful!
If you bid aggressively, you should know how to play the cards. In this deal, you reach seven spades. After West leads the club king to your ace, how would you try to bring home the grand slam?
South should open one spade. His hand has great potential, but only if partner has spade support.
North's response was the Jacoby Forcing Raise. It was an overbid — a three-spade game-invitational limit raise was sufficient. And South, after using Blackwood for aces, should have asked for kings, stopping in six spades when North showed none.
There are only 12 tricks: eight spades, one heart, two diamonds and one club. You must establish dummy's fifth heart. This requires hearts to split 4-3. You plan to ruff three hearts in your hand and return to dummy to cash the 13th heart. This means that you need four dummy entries: three for heart ruffs and one to reach the new heart winner. These must be the heart ace and three trumps. So you must be careful with the spade two. Sit on it or put it in your pocketbook.
Cash your spade king, play your heart to dummy's ace, and ruff a heart high (i.e., not with the two). Play a high trump to dummy's jack, ruff a heart high, return to dummy with another high trump, and ruff a third heart high. Finally, retrieve the spade two, lead it to dummy's four, and cash the heart six, discarding your club jack. Beautiful!