BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Rubber bridge, North-South vulnerable with a 60-point part score, South deals.

NORTH

x10 9 8 7 4

uJ 10 6

vQ J

w10 5 2

WEST EAST

x6 5 xJ 3

uK 8 7 5 uQ 9 3 2

vA 9 8 2 vK 6 5 4

wK 9 3 wA J 8

SOUTH

xA K Q 2

uA 4

v10 7 3

wQ 7 6 4

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1NT Pass 2u- Pass

2x All pass

-Transfer to spades

Opening lead: Five of x

South was hoping that his excellent trump support would make this an easy one. Should he close out the rubber by making two spades, he could go home with a small profit. This was a very strong group of players and any profit would be a nice result.

The opening spade lead went to the jack and ace. South continued with the king of spades, drawing trumps, and led a low diamond to the board’s jack. East won this with the king and paused to plan the defense. It looked like the defense had two diamond tricks, so they would need four additional tricks from hearts and clubs to defeat the contract.

Dummy’s strong heart fragment looked imposing, so East decided to play on clubs. Nothing would matter much if South held the king of clubs, so East focused on the best play should South have the queen of clubs. A low club would just be ducked by South and dummy’s 10 would protect declarer from losing three clubs, so East shifted brilliantly to the jack of clubs. Perfect! South covered with the queen, losing to West’s king, and West returned the nine. No matter which defender won this trick, a heart shift on the next trick would defeat the contract. Nice defense!

Note that, had East shifted to a heart rather than a club, declarer could duck that and have time to set up the 10 of diamonds for a club discard.

2016 Tribune Content Agency