Evening star., 1946-06-20
Opening lead, two of spades.

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ask your indulgence while I
take up my rod and reel, assume a
characteristic pose and tell Of the
biggest one that ever got away from
the recent masters individual tour
nament. The bidding, rather
bizarre sequence, is recorded as it
actually took place, when drew the
Baron Won Zedwitz as my partner
for three hands. Despite the de-
parture from orthodox methods, the
final contract of six hearts was
sound enough to suit the tastes of
both of my revered aunts.
If you choose to quarrel with the
baron's opening bid of one spade
you are at liberty to do so. I am
not taking sides on that issue. sIt
should be pointed out, however, that
in match point duplicate some play
ers are inclined to stretch the re-
quirements almost out of shape
when they hold nine cards in the
major suits. My first response of
two diamonds is rather silly, I sup
pose, but frankly I could think of
no satisfactory bid at the time and
chose to postpone the agony by
making bid that was forcing for
one round and would afford me an
other chance. When the baron re-
bid two hearts, it was settled in my
mind that we were going to reach
at least a small slam in hearts, so
another one round forcing bid was
made, the naming of a new suit,
clubs. The baron dutifully rebid
three no-trump, and it became clear
that there was no further time for
dilly -dallying, so out came the six
heart bid
West elected to lead the two of
spades. Declarer was unable to
tell whether this was singleton or
from to the 10, but to play safe,
led the ace of hearts, abandoning
the finesse. East's failure to follow
suit complicated matters. Had
hearts broken there would have
been nothing to the play of the
hand, since there would have been
a trump left in dummy to take care
of declarers fourth. spade. The
baron now decided that his best
chance to. make the hand was to
play that the lead of the spade had
been from four and he led toward
the ace. West, of course, ruf1ed and
set the contract one trick.
i The contract could have been full
filed in an exotic manner. AS
dummy I had made so bold as to
rubberneck myself into . view of
the adverse diamonds and spades
and observed that if East were COM
PEELED to hold the diamond stopper
as well as the spades he would be
unable to defend. The only way to
accomplish this result was to de-
prive West of his king of diamonds
and place the onus of protecting
that suit upon his partner. BY
leading the queen of diamonds early
this end can be attained.
Now when all the high cards are
| led, after West has been given his
king of hearts, the dummy will come
down to the ace and small spade
and the nine Of diamonds. South
will reduce to three spades and East
compelled to hold the jack OF dia-
monds will be unable to hold three
spades and declarer's hand will be
high.
To give you some idea Of how
critical the baron is of his own
technique he apologized abjectly at
the conclusion of the hand. I'm
sorry, partner, played it badly.
should have treated the lead as
singleton and played for the trans
posed squeeze" thought for the
moment he was just making merry,
but subsequently realized that he
meant every word of it.
! tCopyright, 1916, by Charles H. Goren)