FRANK STEWART BRIDGE

BENDING THE RULES

Seen on a T-shirt (thankfully, perhaps, with no detailed explanation): “I bent the rules, and the rules won.”

Bridge has “rules” for play and defense that should be treated only as guidelines. Most have logical exceptions.

In today’s deal, West led the jack of diamonds against four hearts. East took his ace (for fear of losing it) and shifted to the jack of spades. South took the ace, drew trumps and threw dummy’s last two spades on the K-Q of diamonds. He eventually lost two clubs to East but made his game.

Invitation

At Trick One, East can see that he can’t beat the contract with top tricks. On the bidding, South surely has the ace of spades, and if he has A Q 5, A Q J 10, Q 7 3, 7 6 2, he would not have accepted North’s invitation to game. If East wins the first diamond (obeying the rule of “third hand high”), South will get two diamond winners. East must duck the first diamond. South wins, but he is deprived of discards and will end up losing two spades and two clubs.

Daily Question

You hold: ♠ K J 10 ♥ 73 ♦ A9642 ♣ A J 9. You open one diamond, your partner bids one spade, you raise to two spades and he bids three diamonds. What do you say?

Answer: If you often raise a major-suit response with threecard support, a case exists for treating partner’s three diamonds as encouraging but not forcing. Most pairs treat it as forcing. Since your hand is a minimum, you can make no aggressive move. Bid three spades or four diamonds.

East dealer

N-S vulnerable