“Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun!”

The traditional opening event of every national tournament in the

U.S. is the Charity Pairs. At a recent charity game, the field reached three no-trump here and, in a display of charity to their opponents, generally failed to display the correct holdup technique necessary. This week’s theme is “A duck in time saves nine.”

The auction provided West with an easy heart 10 lead; now South must plan his first move carefully. If hearts split 4-3, South can win or duck the first or second round of the suit. But as the cards lie, look at what happens if he takes the first heart and drives out the spade ace. (If he leads the club king instead, West will duck, and normal play thereafter defeats the game.) When East takes the spade ace and returns the heart jack, West overtakes and can clear the suit while retaining the club ace as an entry. Now the contract must fail. The key play is to duck the first heart, holding up both the ace and king — often right when declarer must knock out two key-cards — and win the second in hand. The point is that East will have no hearts left if he gets on lead later.

The best technique is for declarer to play the club king before attacking spades. This lets him set up a second club trick even if East had another heart after winning the ace.

If declarer had played spades before clubs, he would not have the entries to take more than one club trick when the club king was ducked. Now the foul spade split would defeat him.