Bridge - The Scotsman 15/04/13

THE Farquharson Trophy is an event for subscribers to the SBU’s Scottish Bridge News. This year’s winners were George Plant and Peter Moss (Edinburgh).

Here is Moss in action for Dundas in a match against Linlithgow. Playing five-card majors North has a normal single raise. South’s game try is aggressive, but the 6-4 distribution compensates for a relative shortage of high cards. West led a passive trump to dummy’s queen. Moss had to assume the ace of diamonds was favourably placed, so that his only concern was not to lose two heart tricks. He won the spade in dummy and lost a heart finesse to West. West switched to low club to partner’s ace, and East cashed the ace of diamonds before returning a club for declarer to ruff.

It was not possible to ruff the fourth heart in dummy, but Moss was in control. He drew the remaining trump, then cashed the king of diamonds to reach this position:

Two more trump squeezed West. He threw the jack of clubs, but on the last trump he had to give in. Hard for East to foresee, but returning a heart after cashing his aces destroys the squeeze by attacking declarer’s entries.