ACES ON BRIDGE

Omar Sharif played in the 1998 Macallan tournament with Paul Chemla, and in the spirit of true repentance, he revealed a painful mistake he had made in a column. I am passing it on so that you can learn from it. Save your trump on defense to ruff winners, they say; well, up to a point.

Against four spades, Paul Chemla led the club jack. Declarer Tony Forrester won with the ace and crossed to dummy in spades to lead the singleton diamond. What he intended to do if Sharif (East) had ducked smoothly, we will never know. In practice, Sharif must have given the show away, for when he ducked, Forrester put up the king. Next, he played the heart eight, ducking Chemla’s 10. At this point, Sharif could see a cross-ruff looming. He carefully overtook the heart 10 with the queen to lead a trump, won in dummy. Forrester correctly led a club, and, following the general rule of not ruffing partner’s trick away, Sharif discarded. However, Forrester won his club king, ruffed a diamond, then played the heart ace and ruffed a heart. Another diamond ruff left him with the trump ace for his 10th trick. If Sharif had trumped the second club and played his last spade, Forrester would have had only nine tricks. He would have found no extra club winners, and the defense would have simply eliminated a trump from both hands, saving a trick. In the end, I suppose all we can say is that there is an exception to every rule in bridge — except this one.