bridge

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

bridge

Both vulnerable. East deals.

NORTH

xA Q 10 8 5

u9 5

vK 10 6

w6 5 3

WEST EAST

xJ 7 6 4 2 xK 9 3

u3 2 uK 7

vJ 9 7 vA Q 4 2

w10 8 4 wA J 7 2

SOUTH

xVoid

uA Q J 10 8 6 4

v8 5 3

wK Q 9

The bidding;

EAST SOUTH WEST NORTH

1NT 3u Pass 4u

Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: Four of x

This deal is from the Lebhar IMP Pairs at the recent ACBL Spring North American Championships held in Reno. Sitting East-West were Marty Hirschman and Gaylor Kasle.

North’s decision to continue to four hearts was reasonable. How was he to know that his hand was virtually useless to his partner?

West made the normal lead of his fourth-best spade, declarer played the ten from dummy and ruffed away East’s king. There was no entry to dummy, so declarer made the clever play of the queen of hearts from hand. After East takes the king, declarer can get to dummy with the nine of trumps, cash the ace and queen of spades for two diamond discards and come to hand with a club to the queen. Declarer now cashes all his trump to arrive at a three-card ending where dummy holds K 10 of diamonds and a club, and South is down to a diamond and Q 9 of clubs. East must come down to a singleton ace in one minor and a guarded ace in the other. If declarer guesses right, he can endplay East in the shorter minor to force a lead away from the ace in the other and hold his losers to three tricks.

All this never came to pass. Hirschman allowed the queen of hearts to win! No matter how declarer continued, he could not avoid losing four tricks in the minor suits.

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