A Famous Hand by Charles Goren

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The Courier – 27 Abr 1984

The Super Moysian Fit: The 3-3 Fit

East West: Vulnerable;  Dealer North

Lead : K

Adam Meredith in his early twenties c. 1935
Adam Meredith in his early twenties c. 1935

The trend today is toward five card major opening bids. Some years ago, the late Sonny Moyse, when editor of The Bridge World, devoted much ink to espousing the cause of the 4-3 major-suit fit. Even before that Adam Meredith, the mercurial genius of British bridge, was advocating his idea of three-card spade suit opening bid, Meredith’s theory was that the spade suit possessed groat preemptive qualities. It stole the whole one level from the opponents. He practiced what he preached. This hand is from a tournament many years ago.

In third seat Meredith trotted out his favorite one spade opening bid. When he ran from two no trump doubled to three clubs, North should have realized what was going on. Instead of passing, North rashly leaped to four spades, but a catastrophe was averted by Meredith’s skill. West led the king of hearts and continued with the ace. Meredith ruffed, finessed the queen of diamonds successfully and ruffed another heart.

With impeccable timing, declarer cashed the ace of diamonds and the ace-king of clubs. He ruffed a club low in dummy and was overjoyed to find that suit divided evenly. He came back to hand by ruffing dummy’s last heart with his queen of trumps. By now he had now scored eight of the first nine tricks and he was in his hand for the coup de grace.

Declarer led a club and West was helpless. If he ruffed low, declarer would over-ruff with the table’s ten, and the trump ace would be the fulfilling trick. So West ruffed with the jack of trumps. Meredith, however, had a neat counter. Instead of over. ruffing, he fluffed a diamond from the board. Now dummy was poised over West’. K-9 with the A-10. No matter how the defense proceeded, sooner or later dummy would score both trumps for the fulfilling tricks.