BRIDGE

LAST CHANCE Both vulnerable. North deals. Opening lead: Ten of Diamonds Today’s deal is from a European tournament. North-South were using a throw-back system that included four-card majors, hence the onespade opening bid. Few declarers could survive against opponents who always make the right plays on defence. Most defensive “errors” are actually quite reasonable plays that only emerge as errors with the benefit of hindsight. West’s opening lead of a diamond is quite reasonable – there is no reason to lead a club. South won this lead with dummy’s king and led a spade to the king and ace. West would have done better to duck his ace, but again, winning the ace was a reasonable play. West still had no reason to find the club switch and he continued with another diamond to the board’s ace. Declarer now led a low heart from the table. East reasonably put up his 10 of hearts and West had his last chance to defeat the contract. He needed to overtake the 10 of hearts with his queen and shift to clubs. We think the winning defence would have been a very sharp defence for West to have found, and we would again characterise his error as “reasonable”. Feel free to disagree. East continued with another heart and declarer made no mistake. South won and cashed dummy’s other heart winner, followed by the jack of spades and a spade to his queen. The queen of diamonds was cashed before exiting with his last heart to East’s jack. East was forced to give dummy the king of clubs and an entry to the long spade for nine tricks. Well played!