Goren on Bridge

Today’s deal comes from an American Contract Bridge League Junior Camp some years ago. South was a young man named Ophir Reshef.

North’s three-heart cuebid asked South to bid no-trump if he had a heart stopper. Despite their sensible auction, North-South reached a contract that seemed to have no play. The heart position would be apparent after the first trick, and East would surely find the club shift to defeat the contract.

To stave off the club shift and to buy the time needed to set up dummy’s diamonds, Reshef made the creative play of dropping his queen of hearts under East’s ace at trick one! Even if East continued with the jack of hearts, dummy would still have a stopper in the suit and Reshef would be able to force out the ace of diamonds and have nine tricks. East, however, was too smart to continue with the jack of hearts. Certain that declarer had started with the king-queen doubleton of hearts, East continued with a low heart. Reshef played low from his hand and dummy’s five won the trick.

The king of diamonds came next, of course, and Reshef finished with a surprising overtrick. East, showing a great sense of sportsmanship, shook his hand and congratulated him for his excellent deceptive play.

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. Email responses may be sent to tcaeditors@tribune.com. © 2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.