ACES ON BRIDGE

After the first final session of the Mitchell Board-a-Match Teams from San Diego last year, Steve Sanborn was full of praise for his wife’s play in four spades doubled. But despite the fact that everybody was supposed to be playing the same deals, nobody else recognized the hand. Steve and Kerri were playing against Dennis Bilde and Giorgio Duboin.

The late John Lowenthal — everyone’s No. 1 choice for “Mad scientist on opening lead” — might have led a red suit at trick one. Bilde, however, looked no further than a top club for his opening salvo. At the sight of dummy, he shifted to a diamond, which went to the three, nine and queen. Kerri played the spade 10 to the king and ace, won the spade return and ran all the trumps. She had come down to the doubleton ace in each red suit in her hand and the doubleton jack in each red suit in dummy, but what four cards was East to keep?

To keep the diamonds and hearts guarded, Duboin also had to retain two cards in each red suit. Declarer then played the heart ace and another heart; Duboin could win the latter trick, but he was then endplayed to concede the last two tricks in diamonds. Making the doubled game was good for a win on the board.

So why did no one else know the deal? It was board 28 in a 14-table section, but all other sections had only 13 tables, so they had played boards one through 26 only.