Bridge

KEEP IN CONTACT WITH YOUR HAND

Duffy Daugherty, who won two national championships as the head coach of Michigan State University, said, “Football is not a contact sport. Football is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.”

Bridge is often a contact sport -- declarer needs to keep contact with his hand or the dummy, or the defenders need to keep contact with each other. How does that apply in today’s deal? South is in four hearts. The defenders start with three rounds of diamonds. How should declarer continue?

I am not fond of that oneno-trump opening bid with no stoppers in the pointed suits. However, if South opens one club, and North responds one spade, South would have an unpleasant rebid. Maybe one no-trump is the lesser of the evils.

After the diamond ace (East signals with the jack), a diamond to the 10 and the diamond king, declarer, knowing that West is out of diamonds, ruffs high. Now South needs to establish clubs, draw trumps and run the clubs. But if he draws trumps immediately, West will duck the first round of clubs, and South will have lost contact with his hand. He must draw only two rounds of hearts, using his ace and dummy’s queen, then play on clubs. When West takes his ace and shifts to spades, declarer wins with dummy’s ace, plays a heart to his king to remove West’s final thorn and cashes his club winners.

Yes, East missed the better defense of shifting to his singleton club at trick three. But that could just as easily have been suicidal. (Even more psychic is a lowdiamond lead by West, followed by a club shift from East!)