Contract Bridge

Whether a hand justifies an opening bid is most often measured in terms of point count. But another very important ingredient to consider is the trick-taking value of the hand.

Thus, South’s opening bid here — with only 11 highcard points — is acceptable for two reasons. He has six probable winners if hearts are trump, which is more than most hands with a higher point count.

Also, he has an easy way to identify the weakness of his opening bid as the bidding develops. If North continues to make forcing bids, South can rebid his hearts at the minimum level every time it’s his turn.

In the present case, South’s pass of three spades suggests that his opening bid may have been on the weak side. The obligation to rebid a six-card suit is deliberately bypassed because of the more pressing need to show minimum values.

East won the spade lead with the jack and continued with the A-K. Declarer, fully aware that West had almost surely started with a doubleton spade, ruffed with the king and was overruffed by West with the ace. South then won the club return with the ace, drew trump and claimed.

However, West should have defeated four hearts. Had he discarded at trick three instead of overruffing, declarer would have gone down one, eventually losing two trump tricks — the ace and the ten — instead of one. Furthermore, West was in an ideal position to know this, since he could see that if he refused to overruff South’s king, the ten would automatically become promoted into a second trump trick.

It is true that defenders are usually delighted to overruff declarer when the opportunity presents itself, but this was one of those occasions where that impulse should have been rejected. The ace of trump could never get away, but the contract might if the ace was played prematurely.