PHILIP ALDER

BRIDGE

This senryu came from John Harvey of Mount Hope, Ontario: My partner is great / She is pretty as a dove / You should see her coup.

Now you know the theme of today’s deal! South is in seven hearts. He wins the first trick with his club ace, plays a heart to the queen and returns a heart to his ace, preparing to claim. However, West’s diamond discard is a blow. How did declarer continue?

In the auction, North used Blackwood despite having three immediate club losers — usually a no-no. But he knew that his partner had to have something in clubs for his threeheart jump-rebid.

When declarer saw the bad trump split, he realized that he had to engineer a trump coup. He had to ruff twice in his hand to reduce his trump length to the same as East’s. So, South cashed dummy’s top spades and ruffed a spade, East

discarding a club. Back to dummy with a diamond, declarer ruffed a second spade. Now he had the heart K-10 hovering over East’s J-8.

South returned to the dummy with a diamond, leaving everyone with four cards. Dummy had two winning spades and two low clubs. East retained the J-8 of hearts and two minor-suit cards. Declarer held the K-10 of hearts and the K-Q of clubs.

When a spade was led from the board, East had no defense. If he had ruffed, South would have overruffed, drawn East’s last trump and claimed. When East discarded on this spade and the next, at trick 12, declarer led a club for dummy and caught East’s hearts in a trump coup.