Bridge

An all-time great play

Opening lead — five of diamonds.

There was nothing dramatic about the setting. It was just a rubber-bridge game. The stakes were, say, two zlotys a point. The declarer (South) was Howard Schenken, one of the game’s all-time greats.

On the preceding hand, he and his partner had managed to climb all the way to two spades, making six. The recriminations had not yet died down when Schenken, holding half the deck, found himself confronted with a thirdhand opening spade bid. After a brief skirmish, he bought the contract at two notrump, and West led a diamond.

He won East’s jack of diamonds with the queen. Seven tricks were in sight, and the question was where the eighth would come from. Obviously, if Schenken attacked spades, East would not take his ace until the fourth round. Without winning the fifth spade in dummy, there would be no eighth trick.

Unfazed, Schenken worked out a way to make the contract. Like most good plans, it was simple in design and easy to execute. At trick two, he led the nine of diamonds!

West took the ten and returned a diamond, on which East discarded a spade! The scheme had worked. East had made a perfectly natural discard on the third diamond. The king of spades was led, and East’s ace was forced out, giving Schenken four spade tricks and the contract.

Maybe East — a well-known Life Master — shouldn’t have thrown a spade, but he hated to part with either a heart or a club. It seemed much more important to hang on to both of these suits than the apparently useless spade. He was only doing what came naturally.

Schenken’s play illustrates an important principle. Most contracts are made strictly on their merits, but sometimes declarer lacks the ammunition to fulfill his contract by strictly normal play. In such cases, the defenders should be given every opportunity to make a mistake.