BRIDGE It takes two to tango

This deal comes from a team-of-four match. At the first table, South wound up in six clubs doubled after North had opened with a weak two-heart bid.

West led the queen of spades, on which declarer played low from dummy. East followed with the deuce, in effect asking his

partner to stop playing the suit. (Had East wanted another spade lead, he would have played a higher spade.) But West, ignoring his partner’s request that he shift to a different suit, continued with a spade.

For declarer, this was manna from heaven. He ruffed the spade, cashed the ace of clubs, led a heart to dummy’s king, returned the ten of clubs to his jack, drew East’s last trump and claimed the rest of the tricks. West’s failure to lead a diamond at trick two, the obvious shift, allowed declarer to score 1,090 points instead of

losing 100. The deal demonstrates the importance of partnership cooperation on defense. Perhaps West was constitutionally unable to bring himself to lead away from the king of diamonds at trick two and decided instead to make the “safe” lead of another spade.

Then, too, East could have overtaken his partner’s queen and cashed the ace of diamonds.

Oddly enough, this result was only a small part of a double disaster for their team. At the other table, their teammates, sitting North-south, allowed their opponents to play six spades doubled, making with

an overtrick, for a score of 1,860 points! Declarer ruffed South’s king-of-clubs lead in dummy, finessed the queen of spades and easily took the rest of the tricks.

The successful team thus gained 2,950 points on this one deal!

Tomorrow: A very common affliction.