Tricks for East after North’s ‘snap’

Have you ever had a ‘‘snap’’ moment at the bridge table? This is not (heaven forfend) about losing one’s temper but, instead, doing something sufficiently silly to mentally relegate oneself to playing snap. North certainly had one such moment in today’s hand from a recent teams’ event at the Otago Bridge Club.

First, North /South were both too conservative in the bidding and sold out to three hearts.

Worse was to come, though, after North let the contract make.

Here’s what happened.

South led off with the three of diamonds. North analysed the lead and decided his partner was leading from an honour, probably the queen. So he won the trick with the ace and, spurning the maxim of ‘‘always return partner’s opening lead’’, switched to a spade. This was muddled thinking. South’s bidding promised five spades, so declarer was marked with a doubleton. And those spades weren’t going anywhere, since North had such a strong holding in dummy’s long club suit.

Declarer followed with a small spade at trick two and South won with the ten. He then returned a small spade to North’s king.

Now a good bridge player is mentally agile. North should have been surprised to be back on lead and wondered why his partner had underled his ace. So perhaps he thinks, ‘‘Ah, partner must have a singleton diamond instead’’, and returns the suit for South to ruff. Well no.

It was ‘‘snap’’ time for North as he pushed back a third spade (ruffed by East, who then drew trumps) and then later pitched diamonds to preserve his club holding.

Nine tricks for East.

One of this country’s greatest bridge players, the late Lionel Wright, professed he didn’t mind what his partner did in defence if there was a layout which justified the line taken. It’s easy to see Lionel taking North to task over his performance on this hand.