Goren Bridge

Norway can boast of many outstanding bridge players. Norway’s Nils Kvangraven was South in today’s deal.

North’s featherweight take-out double led to a poor contract, unmakeable against best defense. The best defense, however, is often hard to see at the table. A diamond shift at trick two would have been easier for West to find had his partner played the 10 of hearts on the opening lead. Without such an aggressive suitpreference signal to help him, West shifted to the 10 of clubs instead. Kvangraven knew East had a high diamond honor, as West would surely have led one if he had both. East’s pre-empt meant that West should be played for the queen of spades, so declarer won the club shift in his hand.

If South led the ace of spades and then the jack of spades, the jack would be covered by the queen. One diamond loser would go on the 10 of spades, but he would have to give up the lead and another trump play would leave him a trick short. Kvangraven found a lovely solution by leading the jack of spades at trick three.

West chose not to cover, so the jack held the trick. Declarer ruffed a heart in dummy, crossed back to his hand with the ace of spades, and ruffed his last heart in dummy. When West played the queen of spades under the king and then couldn’t ruff the 10 of spades, Kvangraven ended up with 12 tricks. West could have held him to 11 tricks by covering the jack of spades. Nice play.