Reading between the lines BRIDGE

Some of the plays made by an expert declarer may give rise to the suspicion that perhaps an opponent didn’t hold his cards close enough to his vest. As evidence, consider this deal from a rubber-bridge game.

North-South bid aggressively to reach six hearts after East opened with a pre-emptive four-diamond bid. North’s five-diamond cuebid promised the ace or a void in the suit and invited slam, and South decided to accept on the basis of his strong two-suiter.

Declarer won the opening diamond lead with dummy’s ace and immediately ruffed a diamond with the eight, confirming that East started with eight diamonds. South then conceded a club to East’s ace and ruffed the diamond return with the nine.

Declarer crossed to dummy with a trump, cashed the K-Q of clubs and led the jack of spades. When East followed low,

South rose with the ace, caught West’s king and so made the slam!

Playing for the king to be singleton with four cards missing in the suit is not the way to get rich, but South knew exactly what he was doing. Prior to leading spades, he had discovered that East started with eight diamonds headed by the K-Q-J, the doubleton ace of clubs (East had shown out on the third club) and no hearts. East therefore held three spades.

If the three spades included the king, East would surely have opened the bidding with one diamond rather than four diamonds, a defensive bid that normally shows no more than 10 points in high cards. West therefore had to hold precisely the singleton king of spades, so South put up the ace, and the slam came rolling home.

Tomorrow: Aword about squeezes.