Contract Bridge

This deal occurred in the Vanderbilt Teams some years ago. South got to four hearts doubled on the bidding shown, and West led a diamond, won by East with the queen. East shifted to a trump, on which South played the nine. West could have taken the trick with the ten, but in an effort to mislead declarer, he won the nine with the queen.

The benefit of West’s clever play can be seen by what happened next. After ruffing West’s diamond return, South played a low trump, expecting the suit to be divided 3-2. In that case, he would have gone down only one.

But West won the second trump lead with the ten and cashed his A- K, extracting all of declarer’s remaining trumps. East had discarded three spades as the trumps were played, so when West next led a diamond, East was able to score four diamonds before conceding the last three tricks.

South thus lost five diamonds as well as four trump tricks to finish down six for a loss of 1,700 points! He would, of course, have done much better had he not fallen into the trap so artfully laid by West. Had he not led another trump, he would have gone down two instead of six, losing only 500 points.

Note that West’s fine play of winning the trump nine with the queen had everything to gain and nothing to lose. He realized that his queen play might induce declarer to expect a 3-2 trump division, and he also knew that his four natural trump tricks would remain intact even if South avoided further trump leads. West’s deception was surely not profound, but it was extraordinarily effective.