BRIDGE with Bob Jones

Ishmael DelMonte is originally from New Zealand and made a name for himself as an expert player in Australia. Last we heard, he was living in Las Vegas. Wherever he’s living, he’s a terrific bridge player. He was West in today’s deal.

South won the opening club lead with his ace and could have made his contract by drawing trumps, ruffing a club, and conceding a club and two hearts. He didn’t know that, of course, and he was worried that one of the defenders might have three trumps to the jack. He took a line of play that catered to that possibility. Declarer cashed the ace of spades and the king of clubs, then ruffed a club with dummy’s queen of spades. He crossed back to his hand with a diamond ruff and ruffed another club with a low trump in dummy. South thought that a defender short in clubs was likely to have the long trumps.

East over-ruffed this and led the ace of hearts. DelMonte took some time to consider what he knew about the hand. South was known to have started with five clubs, a diamond void, and probably at least six spades to the ace-king (since he thought he could afford to ruff with the queen of spades). That left South with two hearts. Should his second heart be the queen, there was no defense. DelMonte saw a chance if his partner held the queen of hearts, so he played his king of hearts under the ace!

East wasted no time in cashing the queen of hearts and continuing with a third heart. There was no way to prevent DelMonte from scoring the fourth defensive trick with the jack of spades.