Contract Bridge

When the opponents incautiously warn you of danger ahead, it is surely right to make use of the information.

Take this case where South reached three notrump as shown, and West took it into his head to double. This was not the wisest thing for West to do. He certainly had good prospects of defeating the contract, but he could not be sure that he actually would, and, more importantly, he was telling declarer exactly where all the missing high cards were located.

North redoubled, and the battle was on. West led a club, and it wasn’t difficult for declarer to deduce that West had a long club suit and both missing aces.

South realized that if he led a diamond to the king at trick two, he would run into a dead end. West would take the ace and establish his clubs, leaving South with only eight tricks.

The same result would accrue if South instead led a low heart to the queen. Again there would be only eight tricks unless the opposing hearts were divided 3-3 — slightly better than a one- inthree chance.

Faced with this thorny problem — and armed with the knowledge gained from the double — South found an ingenious solution. He led a spade to the ace and then a low heart toward dummy at trick three.

West was helpless against this well- reasoned play. In practice, he followed low, allowing dummy’s jack to win, whereupon declarer forced out the ace of diamonds to produce nine tricks.

Had West gone up with the ace of hearts, South would still have scored nine tricks consisting of three spades, four hearts and two clubs.

West was dead either way. He should have resisted the temptation to double, as it is highly improbable that South would have found the winning line of play without West’s helpful assistance.