“Love in fantastic triumph sat, Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed.” – Aphra Behn

On today’s deal from the quarterfinals of the 2002 McConnell Trophy, six diamonds has plenty of play for North-South and is certainly better then six no-trump.

In fact, wherever slam was attempted, it went down, but not without a struggle on at least one occasion.

In the match between a Dutch team and an English one, the Dutch pair bid to three no-trump for plus 630 on a club lead.

However, in the other room, Nicola Smith and Heather Dhondy were playing relatively light two-level responses.

Dhondy (South) could describe her hand’s shape as shown in today’s auction, reaching six diamonds.

On any lead but a low club the contract is makable, but only by setting up the spades at once.

On a spade lead, that is not a totally unreasonable line to follow.

Instead Dhondy quite logically played dummy’s club king and another club, and when East discarded, declarer won and drew two trumps ending in dummy.

Now she advanced the spade queen, covered, ruffed and overruffed.

Bep Vriend as West carefully exited with the club jack, ruffed in dummy, and Dhondy ruffed a spade back to hand to lead a low heart toward dummy’s ace-jack.

If West plays low, declarer can put in the jack and ruff out the spades, but Vriend saw her chance and put in the queen!

Now declarer was an entry short to set up the spades.

That was down one and a huge swing to Vriend.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Raise to four hearts.

Your partner showed 12 to 14 points admittedly, but when he made a game-try over your sign-off, you can expect four trumps and a maximum with well-fitting cards (such as aces in the minors).

If partner has a different hand – well, no one has doubled you yet!