ACES ON BRIDGE

“Although we live by strife, We’re always sorry to begin it, For what, we ask, is life Without a touch of Poetry in it?” — W.S. Gilbert

This week, we will be examining deals from the 1995 World Team Championships in Beijing. Today's deal is from the Venice Cup encounter between USA1 and USA2.

Sue Picus and Rozanne Pollack had done very well (in practice) to bid the East-west hands to four spades. After receiving the lead of the club king, declarer could handle the bad trump break by setting up diamonds right away. There was a potential trump promotion in clubs, but since North had to cash her heart winner first, the defenders had no communications to achieve it.

At the other table (shown), East-west were also going for the maximum. After Tobi Sokolow's Multi two diamonds, Kitty Munson doubled two spades for takeout, and Carol Simon, South, astutely chose to treat her own hand as a minimum, going through the Lebensohl puppet to three hearts. (Her bad trumps and West's two-spade bid implying a heart fit were pointers.) The USA2 player sitting West went for the throat by doubling, being unlucky to find her heart honors so poorly placed and South with a complete maximum.

On the lead of the spade queen, Simon won, played a heart to the queen and king, then a club to the king and ace. Now what? The best the defense could do was play a second spade, and Simon could ruff in dummy. Then the club queen and a club ruff followed.

There was nothing the defense could do; a heart to the 10 allowed a club ruff, and a diamond to the king was the ninth trick. This board helped USA1 recover from a big deficit to win the match by what was eventually a comfortable margin.

ANSWER: Partner should have good diamonds to bother introducing that suit once you had passed his opening bid. Lead the diamond eight with the expectation of scoring a third-round ruff as your best chance to develop extra tricks.