Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #46
This conundrum was written by Julian Pottage and was originally published in the...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
In this deal from the Blue Ribbon semifinals, David Berkowitz found himself in a very ambitious three-no-trump contract. His Precision one-club opening bid was overcalled with a natural spade, which kept his side out of the spade contract that they were surely destined to find without intervention. Larry Cohen doubled to show 5-8 high-card points, then optimistically raised the one-no-trump rebid to game.
Opening Lead: ♠5
Even when you look at all four hands, it’s hard to see a way to more than seven tricks. West led a fourth-best spade, which Berkowitz won in dummy with the six. The club 10 was ducked around to the ace, setting up Berkowitz’s seventh trick. West persisted with spades, which Berkowitz won in dummy with the 10 to take a losing heart finesse. West got out with the heart jack, and now Berkowitz saw that he might be able to set up a heart for his eighth trick. And where there are eight…
He won the heart ace, played off the club king (to remove West’s exit card), cashed all the spades ending in dummy, and exited with a heart. West could take his good spade, but then had to lead a diamond away from his king. With the diamond queen scoring in hand, and the heart nine a winner in dummy, Berkowitz had his nine tricks — four spades, one club and two tricks in each red suit for plus 400 — almost all of the matchpoints.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1♠
It used to be that overcalls were limited in high cards to an opening bid and should promise a good suit. Those days are gone; bidding anything else but one spade with this hand would be a severe distortion. At the one-level, overcall with either a good suit or a good hand whenever you can.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
