IF HE HAS TWO, YOU NEED TWO ALSO

J ohn Quincy Adams said, "Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air."

In some bridge deals, courage and perseverance by the declarer can cause apparent defensive winners to disappear.

In today's deal, what would you expect the result to be in four spades doubled?

This deal occurred during an Online Contract Bridge League event (details at ocbl.org). It was played 16 times. Eight Wests made four hearts, scoring 620 or 790. Eight Souths were in four spades, being doubled by East. Seven of them went down, but Gunnar Hallberg (a Swede who has lived in England for years) made it when given some help by his opponent.

West started with the heart ace and a second heart. He wanted to reduce the number of trump finesses declarer could take.

After ruffing, South led the spade jack. East rose with his ace, cashed the diamond ace and, expecting to get one more trump trick, led a third heart.

However, declarer knew that he had to reduce his trump length to match East's. So, South ruffed in his hand, led a diamond to the king, played a spade to his seven, returned to dummy with a club and led the diamond queen. When East followed suit, declarer carefully ruffed his own winner, bringing his spade length down to two, the same as East's. After a club to the board, the high diamond nine sealed East's fate. When he discarded, so did South. Then, at trick 12, a club lead produced a trump coup.

East should have led a minor or a low trump at trick five.