Goren Bridge

Today’s deal is from a team competition at a tournament in Norway some years ago. North-South had a nice auction to their best contract. We especially like North’s three spade bid, pinpointing the heart weakness. South would have made a negative double at his first turn if he had four spades, so he would never raise three spades to four.

West led his lowest heart. In the partnership style, that showed an odd number of cards in the suit with or without an honor. East made the normal play of the jack at trick one, allowing South to take his king and keeping communications open between the defenders. South had only eight winners, so he ran the nine of diamonds at trick two, the percentage play with this diamond holding. East won with his queen and led a low heart, putting South to the guess. Declarer guessed right, putting up his 10 for his ninth trick and that was that.

At the other table, East varied from script and inserted his queen of hearts at trick one. The declarer also won with his king and ran the nine of diamonds at trick two. East won with the queen and returned a low heart, but this declarer had a different guess. It was far more likely, after East’s play of the queen earlier, that West had started with a heart honor, specifically the jack. After agonized thought, South played his eight of hearts and lost four heart tricks and two diamonds for down two. Nice play by East!