BRIDGE with Bob Jones

Georgio Duboin, West in today’s deal, has been a mainstay on the Italian national team for many years, winning six world championships. Even a great player like Duboin will occasionally make a bad lead, or perhaps just an unlucky lead. It is sometimes possible to recover from this bad start with good judgment later in the hand.

North’s “cocktail-hour” pre-empt got his side to a terrible game, seemingly off five tricks when they could only afford to lose three. South was slightly aggressive when he bid four hearts, but the opponents were not allowing him to play in three and he was expecting 5-to-7 points from partner, not the wretched dummy that he got.

Duboin led the king of diamonds. This was a reasonable choice, but it looked like a disaster on this deal. South grabbed his ace at trick one and then drew trumps in two rounds. He led his remaining diamond toward the dummy and Duboin paused for thought. The only missing diamond at this point was the 10. It wouldn’t matter what Duboin did if declarer had the 10, but Duboin saw the problem if partner had the 10. Should Duboin rise with his queen, the 10 would fall and both the jack and nine would be good in dummy.

Duboin made the excellent decision to duck his queen of diamonds. That gave away his diamond trick, but declarer still had four losers in the black suits. Duboin’s play saved the day and the contract was defeated. Good recovery!