Goren on Bridge

East-West vulnerable, South deals

Today’s deal is from the recent Fall Nationals held in San Francisco late last year. West was Indian expert Prahalad Rajkumar. All readers, by now, are at least familiar with Key Card Blackwood. The king of the trump suit is considered just as important as an ace for slam purposes. South’s response showed two of the five key cards (the four aces and the king of trumps) plus the queen of trumps. The agreed trump suit was hearts by implication after the pre-empt.

Rajkumar reasoned that all the side-suit strength for the opponents was going to be in dummy. A player will not usually lead away from a king against a grand slam, but Rajkumar knew that the ace of diamonds was in dummy and the queen might be there as well. A diamond finesse, if needed, was going to be successful for declarer. Rajkumar hoped that a diamond lead might convince declarer not to take that finesse if there was any alternative chance for 13 tricks. Accordingly, he led a low diamond on opening lead.

He hit the jackpot! South went up with dummy’s ace and drew the trumps. He then relied on a 4-3 split in spades to give him his thirteenth trick. When spades split 5-2 the contract was defeated. Had Rajkumar not led a diamond, declarer would have had the diamond finesse to fall back on for the extra trick that he needed. Nice lead!

In case you were wondering, the chance of a 4-3 split with seven missing cards is 62%, as opposed to 50 percent for a finesse. Declarer made the right play.