Goren on Bridge

North opened the bidding on a bare minimum and nervously put down the dummy after his partner drove to a grand slam. The problem for South wasn’t that North had a minimum, but that he had the wrong minimum. Had North held the queen of spades or the queen of hearts, instead of the queen of clubs, or even the king of clubs instead of the queen-jack, there would have been 13 top tricks.

North had opened one club and West felt that the king of clubs was located poorly for the defense. Should the contract depend on a club finesse, it was probably going to work. West decided that he would do his best to talk declarer out of that finesse and brilliantly led the deceptive eight of clubs!

South was convinced that the king of clubs had to be offside. He rose with dummy’s ace of clubs and then cashed his ace and king of spades, hoping for queen-jack doubleton. When that didn’t materialize, South cashed the king of hearts and then ran all of his diamonds, coming down to the seven of hearts and the 10 of clubs in his hand and the ace-six of hearts in dummy. Poor West, who had made such a terrific lead, could not keep two hearts and the king of clubs. West did his best by discarding the king of clubs, hoping his partner held the 10, but that gave South the last two tricks with the 10 of clubs and the ace of hearts. West had bragging rights for his lead, but South had his grand slam.

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