FRANK STEWART BRIDGE

SIMPLE SATURDAY

“Simple Saturday” columns treat basic technique and encourage logical thinking.

Sometimes on defense, you can see that declarer is destined to succeed unless you give him a push in the wrong direction. One type of deceptive play is to win a trick with a higher card than necessary.

At today’s four hearts, South wins the first club, draws trumps, cashes his top diamonds and leads a spade toward dummy. West plays the three, dummy the eight. How should East defend? Inference

East can infer that South has three low spades. If he had only two, he would have put up dummy’s king on the first spade, hoping to lose only one trick in the suit. South is hoping West holds the nine plus either the jack or queen.

If East wins with the nine, South will have no option but to lead to dummy’s king later; he will make his game. But if East wins with the jack, South may stick to his plan by leading a second spade to dummy’s ten. The defense will get three spades and a club for down one.

Daily Question

You hold: ♠ 7 5 2 ♥ AKQ93 ♦ KQ 4

♣ A 2. Your partner opens one club, you jump to two hearts and he bids two spades. What do you say?

Answer: Your jump-shift flashed an immediate slam signal to partner, but your hand is not quite strong enough to insist on slam. Bid 2NT. You say your jump was based on a strong, balanced hand with a heart suit. (If you bid three clubs, you would say you jumped because of a big club fit.) Let partner take it from here.

South dealer

N-S vulnerable