WHICH OPPONENT HAS THE VOID?

Occasionally, we are Monday-morning quarterbacks. In particular, if you dabble in the stock market, it is easy to say what you should have done after the stock you held has gone down or the stock you sold ran higher. In bridge, though, the cards are more predictable than stock prices. You should be able to find the right play more often than not.

In today’s deal, South had decisions to make in both the bidding and play. First, should he have opened one heart or two no-trump? The Kaplan-Rubens evaluation method, which loves aces and kings, rates the hand at 21.85 points. But obviously one heart could have worked better. (This type of hand is why strong-club systems were invented.) Then, though, after North made a transfer bid, South jumped to four hearts to show four or five trumps, a doubleton somewhere and a good hand for hearts — it is called a superaccept. North then bid what he thought his partner could make.

After winning the opening spade lead, South played a heart to dummy’s king. When East discarded, South had no option but to try the club finesse, but that lost, and he went down one. Was South wrong or unlucky? Certainly wrong. Suppose South starts with the heart ace and West discards. Then declarer can endplay East. South leads a heart to dummy’s king, cashes his second spade winner and plays on diamonds. If East never ruffs, he is thrown in with his heart queen, forced to lead a club into dummy’s ace-queen or concede a ruff-and-sluff.