Bridge

Thursday's bridge...

THE Italian team owes much of its success to its ability to grind down opponents: however well you play it is hard to gain imps. This example comes from their match against Japan in the knockout phase of this year's Yeh Bros Cup in China.

Tadashi Teramoto found himself in a delicate 3NT. He won the lead of the jack of spades with the king and played a low club. Madala inserted the king, second hand high play designed to make life difficult for declarer, who won the ace in dummy. He entered his hand with a diamond and played a club to the jack and queen. Bocchi feared an endplay in hearts, so cashed the ten of clubs and exited with a diamond to dummy's ace. This made it clear to declarer that spades were 6-1 – surely Bocchi would return partner's suit if he could. So he played a spade to the queen, and Madala won his ace. There was little point in establishing his long suit when he had no entry, so he switched to the ten of hearts to break up a possible red suit squeeze against East.

Teramoto won the trick in hand with his ace and cashed his club and diamond winners, removing all West's exit cards. He crossed to the king of hearts and led the nine of spades, forcing Madala to give him his ninth trick with the eight. Very well played – for a flat board against similar play by Sementa in the other room.