ACES ON BRIDGE

At the Spring National tournament a year ago in Philadelphia, players came from all around the world to compete in the major events. The Vanderbilt Teams Trophy these days is roughly equivalent to a world championship, and the last eight teams could probably hold their own against most national teams.

This was a very nicely played deal by Tarek Sadek, a longtime regular on the Egyptian team, who had done well to reach the only playable slam on the North-South cards.

West accurately led a club; the lead of the six went to the king and ace. How would you have defended as East now? At the table, East returned the club jack. When given a chance to make his slam, Sadek made no mistake. The critical play was to pitch the spade jack from his hand at trick two, then ruff a small spade in hand. He could go back to the heart ace to ruff a second spade in his hand, then draw trumps and go to the diamond ace to run spades.

In fact, the defenders had two chances to beat the slam after the club lead. East could have removed a critical entry to dummy by playing either red suit, after which declarer would no longer be able to ruff out the spades. After a diamond shift (the best play, to remove the side entry to dummy), declarer could either play to ruff a diamond in dummy or for a spade finesse, allied to some additional squeeze chances. However, today, every line would fail.