East-West vulnerable. West deals.

East-West vulnerable. West deals.

NORTH

xQ 9

u7 4 3

vK 9 5

wA 9 8 7 5

WEST EAST

xJ 7 5 3 x8 4 2

u6 uA K 10 9 8 2

vQ 7 2 v3

wK J 10 4 2 wQ 6 3

SOUTH

xA K 10 6

uQ J 5

vA J 10 8 6 4

wVoid

The bidding:

WEST NORTHEAST SOUTH

Pass Pass Pass 1v

Pass 1NT Pass 2x

Pass 3v Pass 4v

Pass 5w Pass 5v

Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Jack of w

You cannot purchase life insurance at the bridge table. There are times when you have to act or pay the price. Consider this deal from a world championship final between Italy and the United States.

With Italy sitting East-West, their system prevented East from opening with a weak two-bid. Still, East’s silence is inexplicable. If East did not want to open with a distributional one-bid in third seat, a two-level overcall was imperative, even at adverse vulnerability. Note that a heart lead would have netted the first three tricks for the defenders.

Even so, it looks like a heart lead, the unbid suit, was right from the West hand. However, looking at a probable trump trick, West did not want to reveal the distribution and chose a club lead instead, ruffed by declarer. Misguessing the trumps, South cashed the ace and king of diamonds.

Declarer next discarded a heart on the ace of clubs, ruffed a club in hand, crossed to the queen of spades and ruffed another club. After cashing the ace and king of spades, South ruffed the remaining spade with the nine of trumps and collected another club ruff with his last trump.

Declarer had scored three spade tricks, one club and two trumps, and five ruffs in his hand and dummy for a total of 11 tricks. At the end, West had to ruff one of East’s heart winners!

SCrt 2010 Tribune Media Services