Goren Bridge

This is another deal from a competition in Norway last year. South was Norwegian Tom Johansen.

Johansen saw that he had five sure losers, plus a problem with the queen of trumps. He came up with a devious line of play that would have fooled almost anybody. Declarer won the opening diamond lead with dummy’s queen and led dummy’s singleton spade. When East followed with the four, Johansen covered with his six, losing to West’s seven. West could have shifted to hearts, but that looked like a dangerous shift. West continued with a “safe” diamond to declarer’s ace.

Johansen led the seven of clubs from his hand. West had another chance to win with his ace and shift to hearts, but he had no idea what was happening. Also, it seemed normal to play a low club, as his partner might have had a singleton 10 or jack, or declarer might have played dummy’s king. West played his low club and the seven held the trick. Johansen now led the king of spades, covered by the ace, and ruffed in dummy. South crossed back to his hand with the king of diamonds and discarded one of dummy’s hearts on the queen of spades. Another trump sealed the deal and Johansen made his contract. A beauty!

Note the importance of playing one round of trumps before ruffing out the ace of spades. The timing would have been different and Johansen would have eventually lost a trick to the queen of clubs.