THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“Logic is logic. That’s all I say.” -- Oliver Wendell Holmes .....................

In today’s deal, Jerry Goldfein (who was part of the U.S. National team in Rhodes 15 years ago) produced a neat play in which he followed his instincts and the clues from the auction. Accordingly, he rejected what was apparently his best line, and spotted the winning alternative.

Six diamonds looks like a fine spot, but the 4-0 trumps and the 8-1 club split are potentially very awkward to overcome. On the lead of the club king, Goldfein won and cashed the diamond king. If trumps had not broken 4-0, he intended to ruff a club with the diamond queen and would have come to 12 tricks in comfort. When East won the trump ace and returned a diamond, Goldfein resisted the temptation to try to ruff a club low in dummy, since the auction had strongly suggested the bad club break.

The difficulty is to see an alternative, but the double of the final contract gave a clue to the location of the missing high cards. Goldfein instead drew all the trump and decided to play West for the tripleton heart nine. He crossed to the spade queen to advance the heart jack. East covered, and declarer ruffed. Then he went back to the table with the spade king and played the heart ace followed by the heart 10, covered and ruffed. When the heart nine fell, Goldfein could use the spade eight as an entry to pitch his club loser on dummy’s heart eight, for his 12th trick.