Goren on Bridge

Norway’s Boye Brogeland is recognized as one of the world’s best bridge players. He has also earned acclaim for his actions a few years ago that led to exposing several well-known pairs as cheats. The International Bridge Press Association named him Personality of the Year in 2015 and he is currently a member of the ACBL’s Anti-Cheating Commission. He also edits Norway’s main bridge magazine. Brogeland was South in today’s deal.

Brogeland knew the club position when East played low to the opening lead. He chose to duck and allow West to hold the lead. This would have led to down two if East held the ace of diamonds. West could have led a diamond to the ace and East would lead the king of clubs, giving West a ruff without losing his club trick. Fortunately for Brogeland, West held that card.

West shifted to a heart to dummy’s bare ace, and Brogeland led the ace of spades followed by the queen of spades. The contract was now safe because East held the only remaining trump. The ace of clubs was an entry to declarer’s hand, and Brogeland discarded two of dummy’s clubs on the king-queen of hearts. He held his losses to one spade, one diamond, and one club.

Brogeland was lucky to find West with the ace of diamonds and East with the long spade. He wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of this luck, however, if he won the opening club lead. There would have been no entry to the high hearts and Brogeland would have had two club losers. 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.