bridge

April 22, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

bridge

Both vulnerable. East deals.

NORTH

xQ 7 3

u5 2

vA Q J 10 7

wA J 5

WEST EAST

x2 xK J 5

u10 9 7 uA K Q J 8 3

v8 6 5 4 v2

w8 7 4 3 2 wQ 10 9

SOUTH

xA 10 9 8 6 4

u6 4

vK 9 3

wK 6

The bidding:

EAST SOUTH WEST NORTH

1u 1u Pass 4x

Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Ten of u

At the bridge table, do not submit like a lamb to the slaughter. Dig deep to find a way to avoid the fate your opponents have in store for you.

North’s hand is certainly worth a jump to four spades after South’s vulnerable one spade overcall. The West hand will contribute little to the defensive effort, and it should be easy for partner to place the missing high cards.

West led the 10 of hearts. East overtook with the jack and shifted to the two of diamonds, an obvious singleton. Declarer won the trick in dummy and led the queen of spades, covered by the king and won with the ace as West followed with the deuce.

There are two obvious lines to try for 10 tricks. One is to lead another trump, hoping East started with only two trumps and will not be able to ruff a diamond. The other is to take a club finesse, intending to discard a heart on the ace of clubs. A glance at the diagram is all that is needed to see that both these lines are destined to fail.

Declarer found another way. The king and ace of clubs were cashed and the jack was led. Had East followed low, declarer would have had to rely on finding East with no more than two trumps. But when East produced the queen, declarer discarded a heart rather than ruff. Now there was no way for East to get to West to obtain a diamond ruff, and declarer could force out the jack of spades at his leisure and score 10 tricks.

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