Goren on Bridge

Twins Justin and Jason Hackett, North and South, respectively, in today’s deal, are the sons of Paul Hackett, a respected British professional. The sons have a reputation as very aggressive bidders, and the final contract on this deal would not win any beauty prizes. Just because a contract is hopeless, however, is no reason to go down.

The opening spade lead went to the queen and king, and Jason led the 10 of hearts, ducking in dummy when West covered. All of the other suits were dangerous to lead, so West led his low heart. Jason inserted dummy’s nine and ran three more heart tricks. He discarded four clubs from his hand while East shed a spade and West a spade and a club. Jason was pretty sure the queen of diamonds was in the West hand, but there was nothing he could do about it while in dummy. He led a club to his 10 and West’s jack.

West could cash his ace of clubs, but then had to lead either a spade or a diamond. He chose to lead a diamond, which ended the issue right there, giving South four diamond tricks. Had West elected to play the ace and another spade instead, Jason would have been in his hand with the jack of spades and he was prepared to take the “backwards” finesse in diamonds. He would have led the jack of diamonds, and assuming West covered, he would have won in dummy and led a diamond back to his nine. Well played! 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.