Bridge

Friday's bridge...

EXPERT play occasionally has silly consequences. This example comes from the United States Women's Bridge Championships in Detroit in June. One might argue that South is not worth a 2C opening bid, but it got her side to a reasonable game with no opposition interference.

West led the ten of hearts, showing two higher hearts, or none.

Declarer tried the king from dummy; when it held she knew that West had started with ?AJ10. It was vital to keep East off lead while developing the club suit. With more entries to dummy she could afford to cash one high club before finessing, but here she had to finesse on the first round or not at all. If West had longer hearts the odds favoured club length with East, so declarer ran the seven of clubs at trick two. Judi Radin won and switched to a low spade, taken perforce with the ace. South now had eight top tricks, and had to rely on a diamond finesse. She cashed the ace of clubs, crossed to the ten and ran the jack of diamonds – and the roof fell in.

Radin had to discard one winner on the third club but the defence made four heart tricks, two spades, the king of diamonds and the queen of clubs for four down.

Declarer in the other room made the same expert play in clubs, but West misread the heart position, playing declarer for a doubleton heart instead of switching to spades. So 3NT made for a 12 imp swing.