The finer points of Jacoby two no-trump

[Photo/China Daily]

Last week, I wrote about the Jacoby Forcing Major-Suit Raise, responding two no-trump after partner opens one heart or one spade and the next player passes. I said that you could use simple rebids instead of textbook Jacoby. Not surprisingly, some emails came in asking for a description of Oswald Jacoby's methods.

The opener's top priority with his rebid is to jump to four of a five-card side suit that contains at least two of the top three honors－as in today's deal. Then responder will know if it is a double-fit deal and probably can count the partnership's winners.

Here, North, over four hearts, with two fast diamond losers, control-bids five clubs, learns that his partner has a first-round diamond control, and jumps to seven spades.

How should South plan the play after West leads the diamond king to declarer's ace? What would have been a more effective lead by West?

When in a grand slam, start by trying to find 13 winners. In this deal, you have four spades, five hearts, one diamond, one club and two club ruffs in the South hand. It is a dummy reversal. However, since the trumps are breaking 4-0 (nearly a 10 percent probability), South must be careful. He needs to draw one round of trumps using his king or jack, not dummy's ace or queen. Then, when he sees the bad split, he plays a club to dummy's ace, ruffs a club, leads a heart to dummy, ruffs the last club, draws trumps, and claims.

Yes, here, a heart lead would be fatal because it prematurely removes one of the necessary dummy entries.