Bridge - The Scotsman 23/02/2012

This deal comes from the Scottish Womens Teams. West led the ace of spades, looking for an attitude signal from partner. East would encourage with a doubleton, or the queen, but, playing upside down signals, she discouraged with the ten. This card denied possession of the jack, so West knew that if she cashed her second top spade she would establish a trick for declarer – but she feared that if she did not, declarer’s spades might disappear on dummy’s diamonds. After cashing the second spade West switched to a club. East was quite happy at this point, since it appeared that declarer could not reach her hand in time to discard the losing club.

Maida Grant confounded East’s hopes by rising with the ace of clubs and crossing to the ten of diamonds to discard dummy’s second club on the jack of spades. She then played trump, and there was nothing the defenders could do.

West does better to switch to a club at trick two. If declarer finesses, East wins and promptly cashes the second spade trick. So she must rise with the ace and play three rounds of diamonds to discard her two remaining spades. Then she plays a low heart to the queen, which scores. If she now plays a heart to the king East wins and plays her fourth diamond to promote a trick for West’s ten of hearts. The winning play is to duck the second round of hearts in both hands – which looks very silly if East has A10x.