BRIDGE

All Pass

* Bergen Raise

** club strength Opening Lead: ♦10 Dummy's jack fetched the queen and ace. The jack of hearts was taken by the ace as East continued with the king of clubs.

South ruffed, drew trump with the heart queen and placed the queen of spades on the table, covered by the king and ace. Declarer could now discard a diamond from dummy on the fourth spade to finish with twelve tricks.

East should have cashed a diamond after winning the trump ace and West should not have covered the queen of spades, restricting declarer to one overtrick. These errors were probably irrelevant because N-S had ventured game with a combined 18 HCP!

North's Bergen Raise had promised about 7-9 HCP with four-card heart support. East seized the opportunity to double the artificial response showing club strength. Alas, this action backfired when South elected to leap to the major suit game. He correctly concluded that North would hold few wasted club values and that his values would be concentrated in the other three suits.

It is rather doubtful that South would advance to game if East had not doubled three clubs.