BRIDGE with Bob Jones

Swedish great P.O. Sundelin was South in today’s deal. He foresaw a problem, took pains to solve it, and found himself in an unusual end position.

The queen of hearts lead held the first trick and West shifted to the jack of diamonds, which ran around to declarer’s queen. Sundelin led a club to dummy’s jack and was off to a good start when that held. Should both trumps and clubs be splitting 3-2, there were 11 top tricks at this point, but there would be problems if one of those suits broke poorly.

Catering to this possibility, Sundelin led the king of diamonds from the table. East won and led a club to dummy’s king. Sundelin cashed the ace of spades and led a spade to his king, noting the bad trump split. A club was led to the ace, followed by a heart ruff, leaving this position:

South led a low diamond, and West could not prevent dummy from gaining the lead in order to discard declarer’s last diamond on a good club. A lovely end position!