BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Both vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

xJ 9 8 5

uK J 5

v7 5 2

wQ 7 6

WEST EAST

x10 7 3 2 xA

uVoid uQ 10 9 8 3

vK Q 10 4 3 vJ 9 6

w10 8 4 2 wK 9 5 3

SOUTH

xK Q 6 4

uA 7 6 4 2

vA 8

wA J

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1u Pass 2u Pass

2x Pass 3x Pass

4x All pass

Opening lead: King of v

Study today’s deal and decide -- would you prefer to play or defend?

South won the opening diamond lead with the ace and led the king of spades. East won with his ace, cashed the jack of diamonds, and then led another diamond. South ruffed this and cashed the queen of spades getting the bad news, and then led a low heart. It would not have helped West to ruff this (we’ll leave it to interested readers to work out why), so he discarded a diamond as dummy’s king won the trick. A club was led to the jack for a winning finesse and declarer cashed the ace of clubs. South next led a spade to dummy’s nine and cashed the jack of spades. East had been forced to discard one club and two hearts on the spades and was now down to the queen-10 of hearts and the king of clubs. Declarer led the queen of clubs to East’s king, and East was forced to lead a heart away from the queen to give South the last two tricks.

Did you choose to play? The defense could have prevailed. After winning the ace of spades, East, who knew that West was void in hearts from the auction, could have led the queen of hearts for partner to ruff. The queen would have been a suit preference signal for diamonds and West could have underled his queen of diamonds to East’s jack for another heart ruff.

Did you decide to defend? South could have negated this defense by simply ducking the king of diamonds at trick one.

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