BRIDGE with Bob Jones

Today’s deal is from the finals of the Australian National Open Teams this year. Reaching the finals were a team from Italy and a team made up of players from both the USA and Poland.

The Italians won the event, but this deal features American star Justin Lall, who was South.

We don’t see a lot of merit in East’s final double, but he won the event, so what do we know? The king of clubs lead held the first trick and West shifted to a low heart. Lall won with dummy’s ace and led a heart to his jack and West’s king. A third heart was ruffed in dummy. Lall led a diamond to his ace and another back to the board’s king. Expecting East to hold all of the missing trumps for his double, he led another diamond and ruffed low. Lall was planning to ruff a club and lead good diamonds from the dummy until East ruffed. It would be simple to hold his trump losers to one. Lall was surprised when West overruffed the third diamond, but that was the last trick for the defense. Dummy ruffed the club shift and led a good diamond. Lall discarded his last club when East didn’t ruff. It would not have helped East to ruff. Lall then simply led a spade to his nine and claimed his contract. East is somewhere asking himself why he doubled.