ACES ON BRIDGE

In a Spingold match at the New York Nationals, Wafik Abdou found himself in a delicate fourspade contract.

His chances improved on the lead of the (third and fifth) clubthree lead, when his club queen took the first trick. Playing carefully, he led a club back to the ace and a spade to the eight. If trumps turned out to be 3-2, he planned to duck one spade, win the next, cash the diamond ace, ruff a club and try to find a safety play in diamonds, to take three tricks from that suit for the contract.

However, when West discarded a club, it gave the impression that he had started with a 0=4=4=5 distribution. Abdou cashed the diamond ace, East producing the 10. Declarer ruffed a club and led a low diamond from dummy. East should have ruffed and led a heart, after which the defense would have prevailed. Understandably, perhaps, East pitched a heart, following the general principle of not ruffing a loser. Abdou won with his diamond king, cashed the heart ace and led a spade to the jack and queen.

Declarer now needed to score all three of his trump tricks, and East could do no better than lead a heart. Abdou ruffed and exited with a diamond.

West could take his queen and give partner a ruff, but East was endplayed in trumps at trick 12 for the contract. If East had played a spade in the ending, declarer would have put in the 10 and exited with a diamond, and again he would have scored his spade six one way or another.

All of that held Abdou’s losses to 3 international match points, while his teammates doubled three spades for minus 530.