Contract Bridge

An unwilling accomplice

An unwilling accomplice

According to a popular song, one good way to get by is with a little help from your friends. Bridge players sometimes can go a step further by enlisting the aid of the enemy to help them out of a difficult predicament.

Consider today’s deal from the 1987 North American Swiss Team Championship. South, Dorothy Truscott, had a difficult decision after East’s weak two-heart opening. A double would be for takeout and might well elicit an unwelcome club response, while the unbalanced distribution and lack of fillers argued against a two-notrump overcall. So she elected to pass, hoping her partner would reopen the bidding, as in fact happened.

West led the heart eight against three notrump. East covered dummy’s ten with the jack, and Truscott ducked. East switched to the king of diamonds, and declarer ducked twice before taking the ace. She then successfully finessed the club queen and cashed the ace, discarding a small spade, before leading the three of hearts from dummy.

East had to put up the nine to prevent South from winning the trick with the seven. Truscott won with the king and cashed the A-K of spades to bring her total thus far to six tricks. It was now time to enlist the help of the enemy. So after cashing the second spade, she exited with a diamond to East’s nine.

With nothing but hearts left, East had to lead from the Q-6-4 to South’s A-7. This not only gave declarer an extra heart trick, but also provided the entry with which to cash her good diamond.

So Truscott wound up scoring two club tricks, two spades, two diamonds and three hearts — just enough for her contract. The result gave her team a 10-IMP pickup when the North-South pair at the other table stopped in three clubs and went down one.