Contract Bridge

This deal occurred during the 1972 World Bridge Olympiad in the match between Poland and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The play presented points of interest at both tables, with the Poles getting the best of the battle against their more experienced opponents. When Patrick Huang and M.F. Tai were North-South for Taiwan, the bidding went as shown, and Andrzej Wilkosz, West for Poland, led a club. Declarer played low from dummy, and East (Lukasz Lebioda) ruffed. East thereupon made the sparkling return of a low diamond! West won with the ten and led another club, ruffed by East for the defense’s third trick. East now attempted to take the ace of diamonds for the setting trick, but Tai ruffed. He decided that if he drew trumps at this point, he would eventually lose a club trick to West and go down one. So, hoping East had no more trumps, he next led a club to dummy’s ace, but East ruffed, and Tai later lost another club to West’s queen to finish down two.

At the second table, the Polish North-South pair got to five clubs, and West, trying to stop a potential crossruff, made the peculiar lead of a low trump. South won the club with the seven, finessed dummy’s jack, cashed the ace, led a heart to the ace, cashed the king of trumps and then led winning hearts until West trumped. He thus lost only a trump and a diamond and so made five clubs. One of the more unusual aspects of the deal was the fact that at the first table, EastWest scored four club tricks (three of them ruffs) to defeat the contract, while at the second table, North-South scored four club tricks to make the contract. Tomorrow: Trump mismanagement.