Bridge

THE OBVIOUS FAILS; WHAT IS THE OPTION?

Fran Lebowitz, who is wellzknown for her sardonic wit, said, “Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.”

Some bridge deals, even when freshly dealt and relieved of all obvious losers, turn out to be sticky.

In today’s deal, how should South play in seven spades after West leads the heart twozqueen, king, acez

North thought that South’s threezdiamond rebid was a helpzsuit gameztry, which he was happy to accept. Five clubs was a controlzbid, expressing slam interest. Then, after North indicated the diamond ace with his controlzbid, South jumped majestically to seven spades.

South starts with only 10 top trickszsix spades, one heart and three diamonds. Probably the zrst reaction is to draw one round of trumps, cash the three diamond tricks, discarding the heart four, and hope to ruff the heart eight, heart three and diamond six on the board.

However, there is a second optionzestablish a club trick. This works if the suit is

4z4 or the ace drops quickly. It fails if East’s distribution is, say, 1z5z2z5, but that is less likely.

This is the planzDiamond to the ace, club ruff, spade to the board zhappy to see the

2z1 splitz, club ruff, trump to the board, club ruff, diamond kingzqueen zdiscarding a heart from the boardz, ruff a heart zor diamondz, trump another club, ruff another redz suited card and cash the club king.

Note that the cashzthreezdiamonds fails here. original line