HBJ’s thoughts on the matter :

First off, we know South must have the diamonds guarded to the King. Secondly, North’s bid of 6H must show one helluva suit, so a lead in that suit is out of the question. Finally South’s 6C must also be flagging up his suit.

Finally, South must be weak and if that is the case not in possession of the spade Ace ? Hence a lead of a the spade queen seems a reasonable bet.

But I don’t understand the 5NT bid as it cuts out so much bidding space to discover what’s in each other’s hands. Moreover no suit has been announced until they arrive at 6 level ? In essence any slam they were in was doomed.

Obviously my game is at a more basic level.

Pre-empts work.

North felt too strong to settle for a safe 4H and decided not to guess the right number of hearts, and so doubled.

South “knew” North’s bid was mostly major suit focused and had a tough response to make, especially as the natural bid was beyond 3N.

Next, North felt too strong, still, to pull to 4H, as that would be sure to be passed out, but had few forcing bids in the tool box at that point. I have to conclude that 4C would not have been ace-asking, otherwise that would seem to be the obvious call. Maybe our esteemed host might weigh in on how one might ask for aces in this auction.

As for other choices, 4D/5D would have been forcing, but I have no clue what either would have meant.

I would guess 4N would have been a quantitative notrump slam invitation, but not forcing.

I would have interpreted 5N to mean what the column said but, in anything but matchpoints, I would have simply bid 6H if I had made the decision that the hand would be olayed in a slam. Partner’s failure to bid 4D would have ended any thoughts of a grand, so I would have bid what appeared to be the safest small slam, especially as partner had shown at least a doubleton with 3N. Only in matchpoints, might I have considered 5N, and I would still probably have bid 6H.

Hi HBJ,

Let me give what I hope to be a clinical review of West’s dilemma on lead.

Usually, especially when playing against a highly rated pair (Berkowitz-Cohen) when one leads against a slam (especially 6NT), the last thing to expect (or almost) is that the opponents could be off two aces.

Only one thing can the opening leader be sure of and that is, the declarer certainly possesses the king of diamonds, since without it, he would never consider 6NT as the final contract. Most other truths or even inferences are scarce with the declarer possibly being both weak and balanced (possibly being 3-3-3-4 and having only a smattering of high card points). The dummy should be expected to be robust in playing tricks and high card points, forcing to a slam (5NT is forcing) opposite a possibly very weak partner. The problem for North is that his partner, instead of being weak could have up to 14 or 15 high card points and still opt for 3NT as his first response, since to go beyond would be perhaps too optimistic.

No doubt North took the high road and just decided that partner could well have the Ace of spades and together with what else, NS could easily have 12 tricks considering that North could provide 7 heart tricks plus the AQx of clubs and the King of spades.

Is North’s bid correct? How would I know, but I can understand his optimism and sometimes the difference between daring and foolhearty is whether or not his venture worked. This time it possibly should not have, but in reality it did, so we shall call it daring.

To cut to the chase of the question, the opening lead, West’s selection of a heart was an attempt to defend and not give the possible 12th trick away to declarer, always thinking that it is very unlikely that all those tricks were available to be immediately cashed.

And so it goes, but again bridge, in all of its glory, often offers countless surprises in its results.

In conclusion, my assessment is that North’s daring experiment actually was successful and West’s opening lead was unlucky, although if you were sitting West, the shoe, not to mention the all important result, would have been on the other foot.

Thanks always for your, from the heart, opinion and as a reminder of both that, 1. Heart attacks are to be avoided, and 2. Sometimes long thought processes (5 minutes in this case) do not help.

Ooops!

I was not making a bull-fighting joke, I swear! It’s just that the “o” is one key away from the “p.”