PLAN TO KEEP THE SETTING TRICK

When you are defending, it is a reasonable policy to keep winners and throw losers, but what do you do if both of your cards are winners? Then you must be careful to abandon the right one.

Today’s deal, which arose during a world team championship, resulted in one red face because of an ill-advised discard.

When West led a fourth-highest spade two, South called for the queen because he wanted to get into the dummy. Now came a low club to the king, East playing the nine. Back to dummy with a heart, declarer led another club, East contributing the two. Confident that East would not have done that holding J-9-2, South went up with his queen. Exhaling quietly, declarer exited with a club, West discarding a low heart. East returned a spade to South’s ace.

When declarer cashed his last club trick, West pitched a diamond, but what should East have thrown? One East discarded an apparently useless low heart. However, this was fatal. Declarer cashed his two remaining heart tricks, ending in the dummy. Then he exited with the spade nine. The defenders cashed their spade tricks ending in East. He switched to the diamond seven, but declarer guessed correctly, playing low from his hand.

At the other table, East wisely kept all four hearts. Knowing he couldn’t afford a diamond discard, East let go of his remaining low spade. Now when declarer cashed the hearts before exiting with the spade nine, East won with the spade jack and cashed a heart trick. The defenders had five winners: two spades, one heart, one diamond and one club.