The Flannery Hand: North and South, decided before the round of bridge that an opening of two diamonds shows five hearts and four spades with 11 to 15 high card points. This bid was first used by Bill Flannery. The people that play Flannery love it because it becomes a good tool for finding slam once you know all the bells and whistles.
The bidding: North has the required distribution and opens two diamonds. South alerts the bid. South has a hand with ten or more points and bids two notrump asking partner to describe his hand. North responds three hearts which shows two-two in the minors and a minimum. Three clubs shows three clubs, four clubs shows four clubs and similarly for diamonds. Three spades shows two-two in the minors and a maximum.
South asks for keycards and finds that North has zero or three keycards. South bids six. North cannot make six but South can.
The Lead: The ace of clubs is not a good lead because South would not have a worthless doubleton and use Blackwood. Therefore he likely has an honour. West makes a passive trump lead.
The play: South wins the trump in his hand and plays hearts, ruffing the third round. If hearts were split four-two, he would use drawing trump as transportation and ruff two hearts. He only needs to ruff hearts once so he draws trump and claims seven.
Result:
6S by South +1 for +1460 (Spade lead)
6S by South making for +1430 (Ace of club lead)
6S by North -1 for -100 (Queen of clubs lead)
Do You Have The Basics?
Q7: Against four spades, Partner leads the Ace of diamonds from Ace King, dummy has three small ones and you have QJ43, what do you play? See column 177 at watsongallery.ca for the answer.