Goren Bridge

North had a terrible problem in the auction. With more room to exchange information, North-South might have reached the magical seven clubs or the lay down six notrump. East’s pre-empt took that room away from them and North guessed, reasonably, to bid the slam in spades.

South won the opening heart lead with dummy’s ace and realized that the contract depended on holding his trump losers to one. With no opposition bidding, the normal play is to cash the king of spades and lead a spade toward his hand, planning to play the jack if the queen has not appeared. There was opposition bidding, however, and it changed the percentages regarding the play in the spade suit.

East could be presumed to hold seven hearts for his opening bid, as opposed to only three hearts for West.

That meant that East had six unknown cards compared to 10 unknown cards for West. West was therefore far more likely than East to hold the spade length. Declarer made the correct play under these conditions. He crossed to his hand at trick two with a heart ruff and led the jack of spades. This play would hold the trump losers to one anytime the suit split 3-2 and would win anytime West held four to the queen. It would lose in the unlucky event that East started with a singleton queen. West chose to cover the jack with the queen and South had no trouble holding his trump losers to one from there. Nice play!

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