BRIDGE

As South successfully demonstrated with his skillful play of today’s deal, you don’t always have to draw trumps to draw trumps!

With no clearly better choice for an opening lead, West opted for the start of ace and a second round of spades.

That created immediate spade winners for declarer but winners that would be unusable as long as East had hearts remaining. The early defense also meant South couldn’t afford to lose an early trick to the trump Queen lest the defenders then cashed the two club tricks they had available.

All to make playing off the two top trumps a very attractive line of play for declarer. If the Queen of hearts arrived in one of those two rounds, the rest would be mere mopping up while if the trumps split 3-2 and the Queen was still outstanding, South would play a good spade to discard one of dummy’s club losers.

But neither of those possibilities obtained when West showed out on the second round of hearts!

Time for Plan “B”. Rather than using spades for club discards from dummy, South shifted his attention to diamonds: Queen and a second round to cash the third round for a club discard from the closed hand.

On the fourth round of diamonds, East’s remaining trumps were caught in the middle: if he ruffed low, South would overruff and pitch a club from dummy on a good spade while ruffing in with the Queen would be equally unfruitful for the defender as South would simply pitch one more club.

In either scenario, East’s last two trumps, while not exactly being “drawn”, would be neutralized.