Goren on Bridge

South was concerned that spade bidding by his opponents might shut out his heart suit if he overcalled one diamond, so he elected to overcall in his strong four-card suit instead.

The final contract was far from cold. East was certain to hold the king of diamonds for his opening bid. Unless it was singleton or doubleton, South was looking at two diamond losers as well as one loser in each black suit, but he had some useful information available to him. East-West were playing “third-and-fifth” leads, which is popular in tournament play. The lead of a low card shows an odd number of cards in the suit. The lead of the two of clubs, therefore, meant that West had five clubs, as he would never jump to the three level with only three.

South won the opening club lead with his ace and drew trumps in two rounds. East was known to have started with two hearts and four clubs. East couldn’t have five spades and he might have opened one diamond with 4-4 in the minors. It looked like East started with precisely 4-2-3-4 distribution.

At trick four, declarer led a low diamond to dummy’s nine, losing to East’s 10. East cashed one high club before shifting to the king of spades, taken with dummy’s ace. South led dummy’s queen of diamonds and played low from his hand when East didn’t cover. Success! This pinned West’s jack and South was able to discard both of dummy’s remaining spades on the long diamonds to finish with 11 tricks. Well played!