Bridge

Today’ s hand is from the 2017 House of Lords versus Home of Commons annual teams-of-eight-bridge-match. As usual, the hands were selected by Paul Bow y er and the consensus of opinion amongst the participants was that this was his most interesting set yet.

South, Lord Howard, made short work of the bidding on this hand. Obviously a disciple of the Rule of 10 he opened as dealer with Four Spa des, which nobody felt inclined to disturb. Rule of 10? Add the number of cards in the suit( minimum six) to the number of honour sin the suit, and if the answer equals 10, insist on playing in that strain.

Declarer had no problem in collecting ten tricks for+ 420.

When the hand was originally played in Four Spa des, West found a superb defence.

West led his single ton heart, won in dummy with the ace. Declarer nowerred by calling for the ten of spa des from dummy, West holding off. But when declarer followed with a second spa de, denuding dummy of them in the process, West took the king with the ace and returned a lowclub. Dummy’ sace took the trick, but could not enter hand easily to draw the last trump. On a diamond to the king, West pounced with his ace then under led his club honour for the second time. Winning with the jack, East gave West the heart ru ff that was the setting trick. Declarer gets home if he plays a diamond at trick two.