Bridge

The contract finished down two when the defense swiftly cashed four black suit winners, N-S -100.

The bad news is that the major suit game comes home since there are only three redsuit losers where West would record a satisfying +620.

A double of the sacrifice would have yielded an improved result of +300 but West held no values outside of the spade suit and East could not be certain that he would score two defensive club tricks.

North's resolve to sacrifice with a semi-balanced hand appears mistaken because the spade game might be defeated on another layout but proved to be the winning action on this occasion.

This was tough deal for E-W to judge who could make how many but any notion by East to venture five spades was swiftly rejected. Both sides had been forced to guess in the auction and East, therefore, elected to go quietly in search of a plus score.

The opponents would swiftly cash three red-suit winners against five spades harnessing E-W with a matchpoint zero. We can surmise that E-W did not receive an equitable matchpoint award for the undoubled two-trick set but their fate was decided when North chose to save in spite of the absence of any shortness.