Contract Bridge

Expert players don’t always play expertly. They make mistakes, just like anyone else, but the big difference is that they err far less frequently than ordinary mortals. Take this deal, for instance, played many years ago in an intercity match between Los Angeles and Houston. With a Houston pair sitting North-South and a Los Angeles pair East-West, the bidding went as shown. The slam reached was certainly sound enough, though six diamonds would have been better.

West led the king of spades, East playing the four, and continued with the ace, South ruffing. Declarer drew trump, claimed the balance and chalked up 1,210 points for making six hearts doubled.

Of course, the slam should have been defeated. West had two chances to beat the contract and muffed them both!

First of all, the opening lead should have been a diamond. East, the defender not on lead, had doubled six hearts, which called for an unusual lead in accordance with the slam-doubling convention. The only side suit that had been bid by North-South was diamonds, so this was the unusual lead being requested.

If West had led a diamond, East would have ruffed, returned a spade and then gotten another ruff to defeat the slam two tricks — 300 points.

Even after West led the king of spades, he still could have saved the day by switching to a diamond. But he blithely ignored East’s play of a low spade on the king — which clearly told West to stop playing spades — and continued with the suit. After that it was curtains.

The moral, if there is one, is that bridge is a partnership game, and you can’t afford to ignore critical signals from your own partner. Once, maybe there’s some excuse for, but twice, never!