Sites provide net gains . . .

Royal Gazette Staff

Created: Feb 09, 2007 10:00 AM

THERE is a lot of bridge being played on the Internet these days, withOK Bridge (www.okbridge.com) and Bridgebase Online (www.bridgebase.com) being the leaders. As a pure playing site, I happen to prefer OKBridge but as a multifaceted bridge site there is no doubt that Bridgebase is pretty stunning.

Created by the astonishing Fred Gitelman, Bridgebase has a playing site, great vugraph, many practice tools and great instruction. And, Bridgebase is free!

There is a special playing room on Bridgebase for students, the University Bridge Room where tournaments are held every Wednesday at 3 p.m. Bermuda time and every Sunday at 10 a.m. — try it!

Today’s hand features a real rock-crusher picked up by a UK player and reported by David Bird in the London Evening Standard<$>.

Reader Julian Harper picked up:

[spade]A K

[heart]A Q 5

[diamond]A K Q 2

[club]A K Q J

. . . an amazing 32-point hand!

Bidding these is never easy — even if you find out partner has the heart king by going straight into Blackwood, it is not clear that the grand slam is on — if partner shows length in clubs or diamonds, a grand slam has to have a chance but getting the bidding going is not going to be easy.

Harper opened 2 clubs (strong) and after partner’s expected 2 diamond (weak or waiting) response jumped straight to 6NT — not unreasonable. Dummy was a little disappointing.

Dealer: South

E/W: VulnerableNorth

[spade]Q 9 6 4

[heart]J 7 3

[diamond]7 5 3

[club]7 4 >

West East<$>

[spade]J 10 7 5 [spade]8 3 2

[heart]8 3 [heart]K 10 9 6 4

[diamond]8 6 [diamond]J 10 9 4

[club]10 9 8 6 2 [club]5

South

[spade]A K

[heart]A Q 5

[diamond]A K Q 2

[club]A K Q JSo, how do you play 6NT on the lead of the club 10?

Declarer was a good layer — he won the club, cashed another noting the discard of a heart by East and now played the queen of hearts. If East wins it is game over as declarer can win any return, cash AK of spades, cross to dummy with the heart jack and throw the diamond on the spade queen. East, however, saw this possibility and ducked the heart queen.

Declarer now had to switch to plan B, hoping that diamonds broke 3-3 or that the hand with the long diamond had the heart king. Accordingly, declarer cashed all his black suit winners and East’s last six cards were K10 of hearts and J1094 of diamonds and exited with the last diamond. East wins but has to lead away from the heart king and the hand makes.

Pretty hand, in the bidding and play.

[obox] Trials will be held at the Bridge Club on Tuesday, February 20 and Thursday, February 22 to determine eligibility for local sponsorship. The event will be Stratified — sign-up sheet is posted at the club.

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Sites provide net gains . . .