TURKISH DELIGHT FOR BRIDGE PLAYERS

Scrapbooks often contain hidden gems. Looking through mine, I found some deals from the First Bric Dunyasi Bridge Tournament. It was held in Marmaris, a beautiful resort on the Aegean Sea in the southwest corner of Turkey.

This deal is the very first my partner, nine-time national champion Jim Krekorian, and I played. Our opponents reached a thin game. A diamond lead would have made our lives easy, but understandably Krekorian led the spade seven. Declarer won the first trick with his nine and cashed the spade ace. Krekorian dropped the 10, his middle remaining spade, in an effort to transmit a suit-preference signal relating to diamonds, the middle of the other three suits.

Next, South finessed dummy’s spade jack; I discarded a low heart. Now South called for the heart two. When I played an “automatic” low heart, declarer gave me no second chance. He won with the king, played a club to dummy’s queen, cashed the spade king and played clubs from the top, claiming nine tricks when the jack dropped on the third round.

How should I have known what to do?

When South doesn’t cash the spade king, he must have a dummy entry remaining. That means he must have the club ace and club king. To go with the heart king and spade ace, he couldn’t have the diamond ace as well. I should have shot in with the heart ace and continued with the king and jack of diamonds. With partner holding the vital diamond 10, we would have defeated the contract and gotten the tournament off to a flying, not flat, start.