GREED CAN LEAD TO POVERTY

Mohandas K. Gandhi said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not for every man’s greed.”

That applies to this deal. If declarer tries for an overtrick, he should go down. How should South play in four spades after West leads the heart jack?

Playing Standard American, not two-overone, if North had rebid three spades, not four, would it have been forcing? I think it should be. If you agree, then responder with 10-12 support points and only three spades should make an immediate limit raise. Discuss it with your partner.

If declarer has two trump losers, he has only nine winners: three spades, three hearts, two diamonds and one club.

The simplest line is to ruff a diamond in the dummy for the 10th trick. After winning trick one with dummy’s heart king, cash the diamond ace-king and play off the heart acequeen, discarding dummy’s last diamond. Then ruff the diamond jack on the board.

Finally, South mustn’t get greedy: He should run the spade nine. Now the contract is safe. But if he puts the spade queen on dummy’s nine, he should fail. West can win with the ace and switch to the club queen. If declarer wins with dummy’s ace and runs the spade eight to West’s jack, that defender continues with the club jack. East overtakes with the king and plays another club (or the last diamond) to effect a trump promotion for West’s spade six.

bridge

Similarly, if South ducks the club queen, East overtakes immediately and leads the 13th diamond. Whatever declarer does (if he ruffs low, West discards the club jack), West must win two more trump tricks.

Copyright United Feature Syndicate (Asia Features)