Accurate signaling can be beautiful

Michelangelo said, “A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.”

We could amend that for bridge players: A beautiful bid or play never gives so much pain as does partner’s failing to see it or to interpret it correctly.

There is something beautiful about accurate signaling between defenders that results in the defeat of a contract. In today’s deal, for example, how did East-west card to take four tricks against four spades?

After West opened with a weak twobid, and North made a takeout double, East’s jump to four hearts looked automatic with so many hearts. However, from his point of view, four spades was probably laydown, and so he might have even passed! Here, though, South was always bidding four spades.

West led the diamond ace. East would usually have made an attitude signal to show or deny the queen, but that card was sitting in the dummy. Now, therefore, East would have normally given a count signal by playing the eight (second-highest from four). But East was nervous that his partner would think that he had started with a doubleton and try to give him a ruff at trick three. So East played his two.

Then, when West cashed the diamond king, East dropped the three as a suit-preference signal for clubs. (With the heart ace, East would have played his 10 on the second round.)

West, getting the message, shifted to his singleton club. Finally, East, knowing his partner couldn’t have the heart ace (he would have opened one heart, not two), returned his second club for West to ruff.