Contract Bridge

Occasionally, a player has the opportunity to make a play that is so unusual, it raises the question of how anyone might be smart enough to think of it when the moment of truth is at hand. But bridge is a game of logic, and in many cases, it is possible to find the winning action through a process of logical thought.

Consider this deal where West, defending against three notrump, led the king and another heart to East’s ace. East returned the deuce of hearts to South’s queen, whereupon West — a player known to be of sound mind — discarded the ace of clubs! As a result, declarer went down one. The best he could do was to score three spades, a heart, three diamonds and a club.

Had West discarded a spade or a diamond instead of the ace of clubs, South would no doubt have made four notrump by leading a club to dummy’s king at trick four (if East had the ace, the contract could not be made).

A second round of clubs, collecting East’s queen and West’s ace, would then have established the suit.

West’s extraordinary discard was well- conceived. He read East’s return of the deuce of hearts from the 9- 87-2 (all equals at this point) as a signal suggesting an honor card in clubs.

This was in accordance with the suit- preference convention by which a low- card return indicates interest in a lower- ranking suit, while a high- card return — the nine, say — would denote interest in a higher- ranking suit.

Once East had by inference denied interest in spades or diamonds, the ace- of- clubs discard became logical since it would allow East to gain the lead with the queen of clubs to collect his remaining hearts. West simply had to realize that in this deal, the ace of clubs was not an asset but a liability that had to be quickly disposed of.