Bridge is a strangely intriguing game where fortunes swing dramatically depending upon the level of contract you choose and then the opening lead of the opponents, which can make or break the contract. Sometimes in the stupor of misjudgement of partner's distribution, the bidding is carried away to almost absurd heights, which has little justification, as we shall presently show you a deal wherein the north south pair in a mystifyingly clouded judgement went on and on with the bidding till it reached its zenith at 7S (grand slam).
But that is not all. To add spice to it, when the contract was doubled, it was redoubled more out of nervous apprehension than coaxing the opponents to anything else, which was pretty clear from the fact that the opponents had nothing else left to run to in case they felt their double was premature.
Before we give you the full deal we shall just give you the bidding and the west hand asking you to make your opening lead, which is vitally important in judgement in the context of the outcome of the grand slam contract, being a duplicate pair competition. As west, holding. You hear the following bidding in competition. At that point west holding those mammoth spades with 2 minor aces and a 4 carder heart, doubled 7S, which was promptly redoubled by north who could forsee no loser as his partner had opened and rebid hearts twice.
A word about south's opening who had obviously psyched hoping to stop the opponents from finding their major fit, if any. But when his partner jumped to 3H, he tried his best in vain to close the auction by 4H, which his partner raised to 5C. Again south desperately tried to close the auction by 5H but to no avail as north went on to 6C. Hoping for the diamonds to run, south made one last desperate attempt at 6NT. But there was no stopping the partner who not only bid 7S but also redoubled the double much to the consternation and anguish of the declarer.
First, as west, what would you lead? Remember it's a pairs game and the maximum is always sought. The AC would be a safe lead but then north's clubs would be good enough for any other possible losers and barring the one or two trump tricks that west visualised. But since diamonds were untouched, west preferred AD, which being shortest suit would force them to shorten their trumps to west's advantage. After the AD opening lead, the full hand is given below:
As you can see the AD lead was a disaster for the defence: Do you forsee the prospects of the grand slam in the making? If so, how do you go about it? Now you have enough entries in hand to trap all west's spades and yet manage to wriggle out all the clubs out of the way to make the grand slam. This requires patience, foresight, vision and tenacity.
Declarer ruffs in dummy, comes to hand with QH at trick 2 and plays the 8S. West can hardly afford to cover. But that is irrelevant here. When 8S held for trick 3 and 10S for trick 4, declarer now reeled off 4 diamond tricks discarding all the clubs from dummy, 8 tricks had been taken. Now came the 5th diamond and west's predicament continued. What can he do? If he ruffs, declarer over ruffs, (9th trick) draws the last trump (10th trick) gets back to hand with KH (11th trick) and leads his last diamond (12th trick) squeezing west in hearts and clubs. Remember west has lone AC and JH left while declarer has the 10C in hand still. So perforce west throws a heart and dummy in good. If he ruffs, the 6th diamond, instead, declarer over-ruffs and the result is the same. If west discards AC, declarer leads clubs through his KJ of trumps to AQ of trumps in dummy. The moral of the story is that bridge is a strangely intriguing game.
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KJ74
J1098
A765
A
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S (dealer) North
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1S 3H
4H 5C
5H 6C
6NT 7S
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North West East South
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AQ965 KJ74 32 108
A763 J1098 54 KQ2
- A765 432 KQJ1098
KQJ4 A 987652 103
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