BRIDGE

BRIDGE

East-West vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

x10 7 6

uVoid

vA Q J 8 7 3

wA 7 5 4

WEST EAST

xA J 9 2 x8

uK Q J 2 uA 10 9 8 7

v6 5 4 2 vK 10 9

w10 wJ 8 6 3

SOUTH

xK Q 5 4 3

u6 5 4 3

vVoid

wK Q 9 2

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1x Pass 2v Pass

2u Pass 2x Pass

2NT Pass 4x All pass

Opening lead: 10 of w

Today’s deal is from a high-level match between a team from Italy against a team from Norway. Don’t ask what the two no trump bid meant -- we don’t know. West was Norwegian Terje Aa.

Aa thought long and hard about his opening lead. He decided against the king of hearts and led his singleton club instead. He reasoned that if his partner had an entry in any suit, Aa could get a club ruff and still have two natural trump tricks. This was sound reasoning, but on this deal both of his partner’s potential entries were crushed by the opponent’s distribution.

South won the opening club lead with dummy’s ace and led the queen of diamonds, covered with the king by East and ruffed by declarer. South re-entered dummy with a heart ruff and cashed the ace and jack of diamonds, discarding one heart and one club. He tried to cross back to his hand with the king of clubs in order to ruff another heart, but Aa ruffed the club and had another long think.

Aa had two certain trump tricks remaining, but he rose to the occasion by sacrificing one of them. He cashed the ace of spades and followed that with the jack of spades. This gave away his second trump trick, but declarer, with no entry to dummy, had to give the defense two heart tricks for down one. Nice play!

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