Goren on Bridge

“Upside-Down Count and Attitude,” or UDCA, is a common signaling agreement among modern tournament players. It simply reverses the normal meaning of a defensive signal — a high card is discouraging and a low card encouraging. Any agreement can bite you on a bad day, and today’s deal is an example.

South’s ambitious bidding put him in a contract that appeared doomed. There was a certain spade loser and a club loser, not to mention the missing jack of hearts. One side effect of being a poor bidder is that you get a lot of practice declaring bad contracts. That experience can help you develop some clever techniques.

South played low from dummy on the opening club lead and East, who was playing UDCA with his partner, followed with the encouraging two. South threw a cloud of mystery over the hand when he smoothly ducked and allowed West’s 10 to win the trick. Who can blame poor West for continuing the suit? His 10 had held the trick and his partner had encouraged. He quickly led another club, which South captured with the ace. Three rounds of diamonds drew the trumps. The 3-3 club split provided a discard for South’s losing spade and the jack of hearts was kind enough to drop. Making six!

East could have saved the day for the defense by overtaking the 10 of clubs with the jack at trick one. Should South duck, East could cash his ace of spades. Would you have done this? Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001. E-mail responses may be sent to tcaeditors@tribune.com. © 2018 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.