Contract Bridge

Famous Hand

This deal from the 1988 Vanderbilt Teams features excellent defensive play by Peter Boyd, winner of several national and international titles over the past four decades.

Boyd held the West hand and wound up defending against four hearts after his partner had opened with an unorthodox weak two-spade bid. South won the opening spade lead with the ace and lost the diamond nine to East’s king. East returned a low club, and, after taking the king with the ace, Boyd stopped to think things over.

He judged that declarer might well be in position to score 10 tricks on a crossruff, trumping three spades in dummy to add to the ace of spades and at least six heart tricks in his hand. Accordingly, Boyd made the first of two key plays by shifting to a low trump. This was taken by dummy’s six as East followed with the deuce and South the four.

Since only nine tricks were now available on a crossruff, declarer’s only remaining hope was to establish dummy’s diamonds. So he ruffed a diamond with the queen of hearts and then led the heart seven toward dummy’s J-8.

Had Boyd mechanically followed low, South would have gotten home safely by finessing dummy’s eight, ruffing another diamond high and then leading the ten of hearts to the jack. This would have yielded 10 tricks in the form of six hearts, a spade and three diamonds.

But Boyd had carefully kept track of all the heart spots played to this point. When the seven of hearts was led, he foiled declarer’s plan by playing the nine! This deprived South of the extra entry needed to set up and run the diamonds, so he finished down two, thwarted by the combination of Boyd’s heart shift at trick four and his entry-denying play of the heart nine two tricks later.

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