Goren on Bridge

North-South vulnerable, North deals

North-South were using weak jump responses to partner’s opening bid, a treatment that has a strong following among today’s tournament players. North chose to raise South to game, no doubt hoping for a better trump suit in his partner’s hand.

The friendly lie of the East-West cards would have seen declarer home against most defenders, but East on this deal was Chuck Berger, of Detroit, a leading American expert. The opening diamond lead was ducked in dummy and won by Berger with the queen. Berger shifted accurately to a low heart to West’s 10 and dummy’s king. He only needed for his partner to have an entry and the contract could be defeated.

Declarer cashed dummy’s king of spades as Berger followed suit with the jack. South cashed the ace of diamonds and ruffed a diamond, felling West’s king. The ace of spades was cashed next and Berger followed with the queen! Declarer can succeed at this point by leading a club to dummy and discarding a heart on the jack of diamonds. West would have to ruff this with his natural trump trick.

South needed the spades to be 3-3 or the contract was hopeless, so he did the same thing any good player would do — he led another spade hoping that Berger’s original trump holding was queen-jack-10. West won this with the 10 and led a heart. Berger’s two heart tricks left South down one after a great defense. Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001. Email responses may be sent to tcaeditors@tribune.com. © 2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.