Bridge | 1 June 2024

Thomas Charlsen and Boye Brogeland continue to delight the teams they invite to their World Bridge Tour (WBT). First-class playing conditions, impeccably run and with huge cash prizes; this time it was held in Bodo, northern Norway, and I had a new (to me) pair playing for my team, Dutch champions Simon de Wijs and Bob Drijver.

I thought Simon’s declarer play on this hand was very elegant:

What would you do on the South hand when East opens 3♣?

Those who don’t bid argue that it’s too dangerous as you can easily go for 800 against a part score. Those who do bid argue that it’s equally dangerous to pass as you can easily miss a vulnerable game. West led the ♣6 and East put in the 9. The days when everyone had a 7-card suit for their pre-empts are gone, and South thought East might have thought more carefully about it if he had 7, so he cleared the first hurdle by ducking trick one! East cashed another high Club – dummy letting go of a Spade – but then shifted to his singleton Diamond. This was also very good defence in a tricky situation, as cashing the last high Club would have given declarer an easy ride, just giving up a Diamond trick.

West beat the King with the Ace and got out with a Heart. South took five rounds of those, discarding his clubs and a Spade from hand. West could throw one Diamond only, so he also threw a Spade. The stage was set; two rounds of Spades got West down to Diamonds only, and then a Diamond from dummy to the 8 endplayed West, who had to win and concede the last two tricks. Beautiful!