ACES ON BRIDGE

“It’s dogged as does it. It ain’t thinking about it.” — Anthony Trollope

On this deal from an Open Pairs event a few years ago, Barnet Shenkin, formerly of Scotland, was the hero. He was playing with another Scottish expatriate, Sam Levinson.

Against four spades, West led the diamond king to Shenkin’s ace, and declarer played the spade king at trick two to East’s ace. Next came the diamond jack, followed by a third round of the suit, ruffed by Shenkin. Declarer got the bad news in trumps when he cashed the spade queen. Undaunted, he continued with a heart to dummy’s king (it would not have profited West to ruff a loser), followed by a club to his jack.

Shenkin then took the club ace and played a spade to dummy’s nine. East was already starting to feel the pressure, and it became unbearable when Shenkin cashed the spade jack.

In the four-card ending, what was East to do? A heart discard was out of the question, so he had to let go of a club. Shenkin then exited with the club queen, putting East on play in the two-card ending and forcing him to lead from his Q-10 of hearts into the tenace in dummy.

Did you notice the defensive resource? Shenkin remarked afterward that maybe he should have ducked the first trick to cut the defenders’ communications. Had East won the spade ace and given his partner a ruff by leading a suitpreference heart 10, West could then have underled his diamonds and received a second ruff.