N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: North
Lead: 
3
laurel K 8 7 3 Q 9 5 2 8 6 K 6 2 |
||
| samik 9 6 2 K 8 7 6 10 3 A J 8 5 |
![[W - E]](http://gee.aaronhaspel.com/files/2012/10/t.gif) |
jdonn A J J 4 3 K Q 9 2 Q 10 7 3 |
| Gerard Q 10 5 4 A 10 A J 7 5 4 9 4 |
| West
Dbl |
North Pass 1NT Pass Pass Pass |
East 1 Pass Pass 3 |
South 1 Pass 2 Pass |
Every call is normal today until West’s 2C is passed around to Gee. Does he pass? Nah, E/W have about half the points, why sell out to two lousy clubs? OK, does he bid 2D? Well, his partner implied a diamond doubleton, but she could have just one, that seems problematic. Yet partner did promise something in the majors with her 1NT bid…clearly there’s only one answer: yes, it’s 2S, on Q10xx, the passed-hand balancing reverse, with two and a half twists from the pike position.
Again Gee’s masterly table feel has landed his side in their best fit. East, staggered, manages to recover in time to compete to 3C on nothing in particular — although I don’t blame him for bidding something, anything, on that auction — and there the matter ends. 3C has no chance against ordinary defense, but unorthodox bidding often calls for unorthodox play. Gee opens the HA, ignores his partner’s encouraging 5, and shifts to the DA and another diamond. This is the end of the defense. Declarer wins the second diamond and plays trump ace and another trump. (North now has no way to get to South’s hand for a diamond ruff to kill one of declarer’s discards. This is the vital importance of cashing the HA at trick 1.) He wins the spade return, draws the last trump, tosses two hearts on the diamonds, and claims.
STCPs™ should pause here to ponder the exquisite timing involved. The heart ace and another heart will defeat the contract. So too will the diamond ace and another diamond (provided North finds the heart shift). Only the alert defender who thinks to lead both aces can allow the hand to make. Be honest now: did you expect anything less?
In balancing position, X would pass the messages that overcaller has 1) good values 2) no more than a 5 card D suit (else 2D rebid) 3) has another suit; it requires advancer to 1) prefer to 2D with a doubleton or tripleton and no other four card suit 2) or to pass for penalties 3) or to bid another suit (this can be problematic when, as in this case, advancer has both ‘unbid’ suits and bids the one overcaller is short in; a possible result is playing at the 3 level in a 5-2 fit in overcaller’s suit…not necessarily a bad thing). In this case Gee’s two and a half twist from the pike position has luckily resulted in pushing the opponents a level higher, and a trump lead is as marked on the auction as the rosey-red sheen of a baboon’s rump, resulting in an easy two-trick set. Never leading trumps, but rather the HA, was typical Gee, and the ignoring of partner’s signal can only be attributed to the passing overhead of a flatulent figure of the bovine ilk. To now shift to the DA smacks of Serlingism, but as Aaron has observed, there is little else to expect. In Gee’s defense, HIS aces never ‘run away’.