Grand Finale

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: J

	drkangel K 6 Q 3 2 7 5 K 10 7 6 5 4
demolay Q 7 4 A J 10 6 5 — A Q 9 3 2		Maestro A 9 5 2 8 7 A K Q 10 8 4 3 —
	waso J 10 8 3 K 9 4 J 9 6 2 J 8

West 1 2NT 4 5 6 Pass

North 2 Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass

East 2 3 4NT 5NT 7 Pass

South Pass Pass Pass Pass Dbl

 

Today I shall necessarily be brief, for before us is the Auction That Passeth All Understanding.

Our hero sits East. After a perfectly sane 1H opener from West and a rather less sane 2C overcall from North, Gee responds 2D. This is the last bid of his that I understand. Doubtless this is due to my own limitations. West rebids 2NT. He has no attractive alternatives, and one can sympathize. (3NT may well make at the table. 4H is somewhat better, but no game is cold.)

West has now shown no fit — with four spades he would probably bid them over 2D — and a minimum hand. Lesser players would content themselves with a simple 3NT here. Gee, however, bids 3S, and West raises to 4 — assuming that his partner would never introduce a motheaten four-card suit at the 3-level. A pause ensues, and 4NT emerges. Blackwood with a void is again perhaps not every player’s choice, but true masters adopt, quite properly, a Nietzschean contempt for the silly “rules” that constrain the rest of us. West dutifully responds 5S, with spades agreed. It is possible to construct a West hand on which six diamonds makes, something like QJ10 Axxxx Jx AJx. But Gee, missing a key card but nonetheless dissatisfied with a mere small slam, proceeds to 5NT, asking for specific kings. West denies an outside K with 6S, Gee signs off in 7D, South doubles, and the rest is silence.

The diamond grand is off only one if spades and diamonds both break 3-3 (or the DJ drops second) and the SK is onside. On the actual, rather more likely distribution we have…well, you all know by now what we have. Don’t you?