Contract Bridge

A blind spot can occur at any time and to anyone during the play of a hand. The victim is often unaware of his transgression until it is later pointed out by someone (usually a spluttering partner), and he is then at a loss to explain why he did what he did.

That is what happened to South on this deal, where a blind spot cost him a cold grand slam. West led the queen of clubs, taken by dummy’s ace. With 12 sure tricks in view, South planned to score a 13th by ruffing a club in dummy after drawing the opposing trumps.

Accordingly, he cashed the A-K of trump, but when West showed out at trick three, South was forced to put his plan to draw trump on hold. Instead, he led a club to the king and ruffed his third club with dummy’s eight. East overruffed, and the slam was kaput.

South was undeniably unlucky to find the trumps divided 4-1 and the clubs 6-2, but North pointed out a simple line of play that was virtually foolproof. It would fail only if East was void in either hearts or spades, and thus offered a far better chance of success than playing three rounds of clubs without East ruffing.

North pointed out that at trick four, after cashing the A-K of trump, South should have played dummy’s ace of spades and ruffed a spade with the seven. South would next cash the jack of diamonds, cross to dummy’s king of hearts and draw East’s last trump with the queen, discarding his losing club. South could then claim the rest with the high hearts in his hand.

Poor South had to agree with his partner’s analysis and was left to wonder where he was when the lights went out.