A Michael’s Cue Bid, showing at least 5-5 in the major suits, is usually made with a weakish hand. It can also be made with a very good hand, but you must take some aggressive action at a future turn in order to clarify that.
North did take an aggressive action, quite reasonably with his fine hand. There were only nine apparent tricks and South had to find a tenth. South won the opening heart lead, which looked like it was from a short suit, with dummy’s ace and drew trumps in three rounds. South cashed dummy’s king of hearts, confirming that West had led a short suit. West’s flyweight opening bid came back to haunt him now as South was able to place all the missing minor-suit points with West.
The king of clubs lost to West’s ace and a club came back to dummy’s queen. A diamond to the 10 put West back on play in an uncomfortable position. Anything West led would help declarer, but West did the best he could by leading the jack of clubs, tempting South to ruff in dummy. South, however, discarded a heart from dummy, leaving West on lead. West had to lead a club now to avoid giving an overtrick and that put South back in his hand to take two more tricks and land his contract. Well done!
