Bridge | 17 August 2024

The recent European Championship in Denmark has given all keen bridge reporters plenty of material, I liked the following hand from the bulletin, featuring Allan Livgard on the winning Norwegian team.

It’s particularly interesting to notice the slow approach in the auction by N/S; jumping around and making nondescript cue-bids in the opponent’s suits does not make for better auctions – it’s usually better to use the space to get your suits across. Allan’s 2♠ on the second round is a good example, partner Terje Aa’s 4♦ is another, and finally the well-judged raise to 6♦ made it three.

East led the Ace of Hearts.                   

There’s some scope for setting up a Spade trick to discard the Queen of Clubs from dummy, but that seems like a long shot, and surely East is a huge favourite to hold the ♣K anyway.

Allan instead ruffed the lead and played a Club to the Queen. When that worked, he ruffed another Heart, re-entered dummy with a trump and ruffed a third Heart. The remaining trump was drawn, and the Ace of Clubs was the entry to ruff the last Heart.

Why this elaborate elimination? Because now he could afford to mis-guess Spades, as long as East had a doubleton – not unlikely.

After a Spade to the Ace and one back, he actually put up the Queen, but even if he had lost to Kx, East would have had to give a ruff-and-sluff.

Nice stuff, Norway!