BRIDGE with Bob Jones

Today’s deal, we are told, is from an all expert highstakes rubber bridge game some years ago. South was Zia Mahmood, who has gone on to win several world championships. His partner was the late Omar Sharif.

West found the best opening lead of a spade, which went to the 10, jack, and queen. Zia led the ace of clubs and another club, losing to West’s king. A second spade went to East’s eight and he had to guess how to continue. Cashing the ace of spades and shifting to diamonds would have done the trick, but East thought he was perfectly safe leading a heart to dummy’s ace. That was dummy’s only entry. Should declarer try to cash the queen of clubs, East could ruff it and he would still be sitting over dummy’s spades.

Zia read the position perfectly. Instead of trying to cash the queen of clubs, Zia ruffed a low club, cashed the king of hearts, and exited with the jack of hearts to West’s queen. West had an unpleasant choice between giving dummy the queen of clubs for a discard or setting up South’s king of diamonds. Well played!

Zia’s card reading was based on sound logic. West had led dummy’s suit rather than either unbid minor. Zia reasoned that he probably held a high honor in each minor that he didn’t want to lead away from. East’s nine-eight of clubs looked like a doubleton. The more we look at the available clues, the more logical Zia’s play becomes.