Bridge - The Scotsman 4/09/2012

Jun Nakamaru-Pinder played with Jim Hay in the Scottish Open team in Lille at the age of just 17. He already has considerable experience in Junior events, and looks a future champion. He was not in the least overawed when Scotland played Italy in the Round Robin. Bocchi’s 1S opener silenced him during the auction, but when he finally converted 3NT to 4S Jun could not resist a double.

He found the best lead of a trump, but the four of spades was not quite good enough. Bocchi won the eight and played a club to the queen. He next finessed the queen of diamonds and cashed the ace, discarding a club from hand. He ruffed a diamond and returned to the ace of hearts to ruff a second diamond. He removed Jun’s last plain card by cashing the ace of clubs, then exited with a club which Jun, reduced to nothing but trump, had to ruff. He led a low trump into the KQ109, only to be put back on lead by being forced to ruff Bocchi’s last club. He made just three trump tricks, losing 590 and 12 imps when the declarer in the other room played with less panache.

The winning lead is the ace of spades, which means dummy’s eight is not an entry, followed by a red card to remove another entry. Declarer can finesse the club, but only gets one opportunity to shorten his trump, so he has to lose a club as well as three trump.