Bridge

Opening lead — 10 of diamonds.

There are times when a player who has made a marginal bid later wishes he had never opened his mouth. One reason for this is that the action taken reveals vital information about the bidder’s hand that can then be used against him during the play.

Take this case, which occurred in a major regional knockout team championship. At the first table, the bidding went as shown, with East electing to make a takeout double at his second turn, implying that he had hearts as well as the diamonds he had indicated with his first-round overcall.

This critical piece of information was not lost on the declarer, Mike Becker, this writer’s brother, who used it to help him bring in his contract, which depended entirely on his guessing how to play the club suit.

Becker won the opening diamond lead and drew trumps in three rounds, noting with interest that East followed suit to all three spades. Since East was known to have started with at least five diamonds and four hearts, this left room in East’s hand for no more than one club. Becker therefore cashed the ace of clubs and led a club to the 10. He later lost two hearts to finish with 10 tricks.

The same contract was reached at the other table, but here the East player did not double two spades at his second turn. Declarer thus had nowhere near as much information to work with, and he eventually misguessed the clubs by cashing the A-K to finish down one.