Goren on Bridge

East’s lead-directing double got West off to the best lead for the defense. South won with dummy’s ace and paused for thought. The contract appeared to depend on the spade finesse — a 50 percent proposition. South, however, did something completely unexpected.

At trick two, South cashed dummy’s ace of spades! He then led the nine of clubs to his ace and a club to dummy’s 10. When that held the trick, he cashed the king of clubs. East ruffed with the king of spades as South shed his remaining diamond. Declarer ruffed East’s diamond play, crossed to dummy with the queen of spades, and discarded his low heart on the queen of clubs. Making six!

“How could you play it like that?” asked West. “Did you see my hand?” “Not at all,” replied South. “This was just a variation on a well-known technique. Rather than relying on a finesse in one suit, I cashed my winners in my longest suit, hoping for a key honor to fall. When that didn’t happen, I took the finesse in the other suit. In this case there was only one spade honor to cash, but the king might have fallen. Either finesse was as likely to succeed as the other.”

Well played, we think.