THE EXPERTS KNOW WHAT OTHERS DO NOT

Niels Bohr, the Dane who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, said, “An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.”

An expert bridge player learned from each of his errors when less skilled at the game. Now he uses this database to make winning plays and to interpret partner’s cards correctly.

In today’s deal, how should the defense go against four spades after West leads the diamond jack and declarer covers with dummy’s queen?

In Standard American, South's two-spade rebid indicates a minimum opening; hence North’s jump to game only. If using two-over-one, two spades would be unlimited, so North would raise to three spades. However, South would sign off in four spades.

An inexperienced defender sitting East would win with the diamond king and cash the diamond ace. Then he would guess whether to shift to a heart or a club. If he guessed correctly, he would defeat the contract, assuming West took the trick with his heart ace and cashed the diamond 10. If East led a club, South would win with the ace, draw trumps ending on the board and discard one diamond and one heart on the two top clubs.

An expert partnership would not need to guess. East would win the first trick with his diamond ace, then cash the king, indicating that he had started with only two diamonds. West would drop the diamond 10 at trick two, a suit-preference signal for hearts. East would shift to the heart nine; West would win with the ace and give his partner a diamond ruff.