The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
AN ABNORMAL LEAD NEEDS PARTNER AWAKE
Ronald Reagan quipped, “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
At the bridge table, sometimes you will see a winning defense, but it needs partner also to be aware of what is happening.
This deal was reported to the International Bridge Press Association by Michael Byrne, the coach of England’s under-20 squad. Sitting East and West were two 16-year-olds: Jasmine Bakhshi and Henry Rose.
South opened with the socalled gambling three notrump. This showed a solid seven-card or longer minor suit with, in principle, no side ace, king or void. So, he lied a little!
The textbook lead against this opening bid is an ace. You usually need to take the first five tricks. Here, Rose had two aces. He correctly realized that the club ace was a safer lead than the spade ace; the club ace was unlikely to damage the defense. But what did he do at trick two?
Rose saw that he and his partner had to take four spade tricks immediately. Otherwise, declarer had at least nine winners via the heart ace, the club king and seven diamonds. What did Rose do?
He hoped his partner had four or five spades headed by the king, queen and eight. But West still had to be careful not to block the suit. At trick two, Rose shifted to the spade nine. Bakhshi took dummy’s 10 with her queen and returned the spade three to her partner’s ace. West then pushed the spade six through dummy’s jack-seven into East’s king-eight tenace.
Beautiful, especially from two players so young.
POOCH CAFE: By Paul Gilligan
By Steve Moore