THE ACES ON BRIDGE

by Bobby Wolff

“It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one’s audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.” -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle .....................

In today’s deal from the 2012 European Open series, both Souths opened a strong no-trump and declared six no-trump on a spade lead. For Poland, Cezary Balicki received the lead of the spade seven. He won in dummy, cashed the top diamonds and top spades, then tried to split the clubs. Though the missing heart honors were both onside, it was too late to attempt to establish a heart trick since West had a club to cash when in with the heart ace -- down one.

For England, David Gold received the lead of the spade four, conventionally low from an even number. He won the ace and played the club jack, followed by a second club, seeing East discard a discouraging heart. Obviously, the signal did not have to be honest, but the heart discard seemed relatively unlikely to be from the queen, so Gold’s next play was a heart to the 10. When that won, Gold played the diamond ace and a diamond to the king to see if the jack would fall. When it did not, he cashed the two club winners, throwing both hearts from dummy. East threw a spade and his last heart, and Gold now read the ending accurately.

He cashed the diamond queen, crossed to the spade king and exited with the diamond 10 to East’s jack, endplaying him to lead into the spade Q-10 at the end. The no-trump slam was made just nine times out of the 42 times it was bid.