Goren Bridge

The club’s Saturday night duplicate had just started when Hard Luck Louie found himself sitting West in today’s deal. Declarer won the opening trump lead in dummy with the ace and ran the jack of cubs. Louie won this with his queen and led another spade, taken by declarer with the seven in hand. South led the king of clubs, covered with the ace by Louie, and ruffed with dummy’s last trump.

South led a heart to his queen and Louie’s ace. Louie exited with a club, but South won this with his 10 and drew trumps in two more rounds. This was followed by the ace and another diamond. Declarer claimed 10 tricks when Louie played the king of diamonds.

Lucky Larry defended the same contract two rounds later. The early defense was the same, but there was a subtle difference when declarer led the king of clubs. Larry reasoned that South would have made his legitimate play for a club trick by leading a club to his king earlier unless he held the 10 of clubs. There was no need, in that case, to cover the king, so Larry played low. South discarded a heart from dummy and ruffed the 10 of clubs with dummy’s last trump.

A heart to the queen and ace put Larry on lead to play another club, but declarer had to ruff it.

South could draw trumps, but he would then have notrumps left and Larry would be sitting with the king of diamonds and a good club. Nice defense.