BRIDGE

There is nothing that upsets a player more than to go down in a grand slam that he could (and should) have made. Witness this deal where South was in seven spades and West led the diamond queen. Declarer won with the king and played the A-K of spades. Had the trumps been divided 2-2, the contest would have ended then and there. But when East showed out on the second spade, South decided to stop drawing trumps in order to take care of his heart losers. He planned to cash the A-K of hearts, then ruff two hearts in dummy and eventually discard his last heart on the diamond ace. But West trumped the first heart lead, and South went down one. Certainly declarer was unlucky to run into such a dreadful heart division. But it is also true that he should have made the grand slam. All he had to do was to ruff dummy’s 9-8-3 of diamonds in his hand, instead of trying to ruff his heart losers in dummy. The correct play after winning the first diamond is to ruff a low diamond with the queen. South next leads a club to the ace, ruffs the eight of diamonds with the king, leads the trump four to dummy’s seven and ruffs the nine of diamonds with the ace. South then overtakes his nine of spades with the ten and draws trumps, easily scoring the rest of the tricks. Declarer’s 13 tricks consist of three diamond ruffs in the South hand, four trump tricks in the North hand and the three sets of A-K’s in the side suits. At no point does declarer have to rely on a favourable spade, heart or diamond division. He simply collects the 13 tricks that are there for the taking.