bridge

August 27, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

bridge

Neither vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

xK 6 4

u8 5

vA 6 3 2

wA K 8 5

WEST EAST

xJ 8 3 xA 7 2

uJ 10 7 uA 9 6 3 2

vK J 10 v8 4

wJ 7 6 3 w10 4 2

SOUTH

xQ 10 9 5

uK Q 4

vQ 9 7 5

wQ 9

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

Pass Pass 1v Pass

1x Pass 2x Pass

2NT Pass 3NT Pass

Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Jack of u

They say the cards never forgive. That is only because we tend to remember those occasions when a mistake proved costly — rather than when it eventually made no difference. Here is an example from an international event in Denmark where a defender found a way to recover.

Note North’s raise to two spades with only three-card support — with a weak doubleton in hearts, any other rebid would distort the holding. That did not prevent North-South from reaching their best game.

West led the jack of hearts. Since that could have been from a holding headed by the king-jack-ten, East, U.S internationalist Steve Weinstein, rose with the ace and returned a low heart, declarer winning. Now declarer went after spades, leading low to the king.

East realized that, if he won with the ace, the rest of his hearts were doomed to wither on the vine. To keep alive the only entry to his hand, he ducked smoothly. Declarer continued with a spade to his ten, and the defenders were back in business. West won with the jack and reverted to hearts, forcing out declarer’s last stopper. There was no way for declarer to come to nine tricks before East regained the lead with the ace of spades to cash his winning hearts — down one.

2010 Tribune Media Services