The Bridge Column

The play of the trump suit was the key in today’s deal, taken from a world championship.

The hands were duplicated throughout the field, so every declarer had a chance to shine.

South was often the declarer after a transfer sequence, and the defense started routinely with three rounds of clubs. Declarer won the third round in his hand with the jack and had to tackle the trump suit. A few declarers chose to start trumps by leading low from their hand toward the dummy. This was an instant winner as declarer could hardly get the trump position wrong after that start.

Many declarers, however, preferred to start trumps by leading from the dummy toward their queen. They crossed to dummy with either a diamond ruff or a spade to the king and led a low heart to their queen, noting the fall of the 10 from East. After West won with his ace, there was no lie of the trump suit that South could handle except an original jack-10 doubleton with East. That’s what they played for and they were also successful.

Was this just a lucky lie of the cards that made it easy to play? Not quite. A couple of the West defenders showed their class. When South led a low heart to their queen, they elegantly ducked their ace! Declarer, “knowing” that East held the ace of trumps, chose to duck the second heart in dummy, hoping East started with ace-10 doubleton. They lost to the jack and were defeated. Nice play!