Goren bridge: Timing is everything

Learn how West's pass led to showcasing the Lebensohl convention, allowing South to make a successful game contract.

Many would have bid three spades with the West hand. West’s decision to pass allows us to show another feature of the popular Lebensohl convention. North’s two no trump bid might have been based on a very weak hand, but the three-spade continuation showed a game-forcing hand with four hearts and a spade stopper. That’s a lot of mileage from one convention. Small wonder it is so popular.

South ruffed the opening spade lead and had to play carefully. Should he draw trumps right away, there was a danger that West could win the ace of diamonds and continue with the nine of spades, leading to three spade losers plus the diamond ace for down one. Instead, South led a diamond to dummy’s king at trick two. A diamond ruff by the defence would not have hurt him. When the king held, he ruffed another spade in hand. Three rounds of trumps drew all the trumps and he continued with the 10 of diamonds from dummy. West won with the ace and continued spades. There were now only two spade winners available to the defence before dummy was out of spades and declarer could claim the balance.

Very nicely played! Had West bid three spades, North would probably have bid four hearts, reaching the same contract but with East on lead. Only an unlikely low spade lead by East would have challenged declarer