Opening lead—
2
When Helen Sobel married Stanley Smith she retired from serious tournament bridge for several years. Then, in 1968, she came back to win the National Mixed team championship with us and Minda Brachman of Dallas. Helen was not a scientific bidder but she made up for lack of science by an extraordinary ability to make winning decisions in bidding or play.
Oswald Jacoby had not played with her for over 25 years and their system was a simple: JACOBY MODERN. They used weak two-bids, limit raises and good no-trumps. When Jacoby asked her how to handle forcing raises, she replied: “We’ll work them out when we get to them.”
When Jacoby opened today’s hand with one heart, Helen had an opportunity to work one out. She decided to use the “Treat-’em-rough-and-tell-’em-nothing System” and went right into Blackwood. Even if the slam wasn’t a good one West might not find the lead to beat it. The slam was a good one, indeed.
Jacoby drew trumps with two leads and proceeded to discard three clubs on dummy’s long diamonds. Then he came up with a neat play to get away with an overtrick. He led a spade to his ace, got back to dummy with a trump and led the jack of clubs. East knew that Jacoby had started with five hearts, two diamonds and six black cards. Failure to ruff a spade indicated that five of these black cards had been clubs so East held back his ace of clubs, whereupon Jacoby covered with his king and stole an overtrick. Not that the overtrick made any real difference. The slam was not bid at the other table.