THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.” -- Sir William Osler .....................

The junior and schools teams championships were contested in Atlanta last summer. When the last board of the Australia-Turkey semifinals started, Turkey had a comfortable lead.

Both tables in the match reached six clubs, and the Australian East led and continued diamonds, forcing declarer Berk Gokce to ruff. Gokce played his club ace and saw the trump void in West. He followed with dummy’s small trump to this trick, a slight but fatal error.

He next cashed the top hearts and ruffed the third heart with the trump queen in dummy. Then came a trump from dummy, which East covered with the nine and declarer won with the 10. Now declarer went to dummy with the spade king and led dummy’s remaining trump, the eight.

This time East did not cover, and declarer could not let the eight hold or he would be stranded in dummy, so he had to overtake and eventually concede the setting trick to the trump jack.

Declarer had to unblock the club seven or eight under his ace on the first round of trump. Then he would have been left with the club two in the dummy in the ending. He would have finessed in clubs, ending up in his hand.

When slam made in the other room after a diamond lead and spade shift (and yes, the contract should have been defeated after that start), Australia qualified for the finals, where they lost to a strong American team.