The Bridge Column

An opening one no-trump range of 15-17 is standard for today’s duplicate players, at least those playing a strong no-trump. Many rubber bridge and social bridge players, however, still use the 16-18 point range that was in vogue when Charles Goren ruled the bridge world.

South ducked the opening club lead and won the club continuation. He cashed the ace of spades and led a low spade to dummy’s nine. The 2-2 split took care of the missing trumps and declarer showed good technique at this point. South ruffed dummy’s remaining club, then led a heart to the board’s ace and a heart back to his king. He led the jack of hearts, intending to ruff it, but changed plans when West covered the jack with the queen. South simply discarded a diamond from dummy and allowed West to win the trick. West was end-played and had to give a ruff-sluff or lead diamonds. West chose to cash the ace of diamonds and South claimed the rest.

An interesting variation would be for East to play his king of clubs at trick one. Whether declarer ducked this or won it, East would be able to gain the lead in clubs at some point and play a diamond. The 10 from South would lose to West’s queen and South would ruff the club shift. If he hasn’t done so already, South will draw trumps and then eliminate the hearts before leading a diamond to his king. West would win with his ace but would again be endplayed and forced to give declarer his contract.