Contract Bridge

This deal was played in the Italy- Taiwan match during the 1972 World Bridge Olympiad. The final contract -- three notrump by South -- was the same at both tables, but the outcome was altogether different.

At the first table, where Giorgio Belladonna was declarer for Italy, West led the ten of hearts. Declarer won with dummy’s queen, led the queen of diamonds, which held, then the jack of diamonds, losing to West’s king.

West shifted to the ten of spades, and the Taiwanese East, overly impressed by his spade holding, signaled with the seven -- a fatal mistake. Belladonna won with the king and ran 10 tricks for a score of 430 points. Had East taken the ten of spades with the ace and returned a heart, Belladonna would have gone down two.

East should have realized from declarer’s approach to the play -- leading diamonds instead of clubs -- that South almost surely had the A- K- x of clubs.

At the second table, after the same bidding, West led the nine of hearts against three notrump. The Taiwanese declarer promptly let the cat out of the bag when he won the heart lead in dummy and cashed five club tricks before finessing the queen of diamonds.

This series of plays enabled East to signal possession of the ace of spades and, at the same time, allowed West to discard two low spades and a low diamond, thereby emphasizing that his sole interest was in a heart return.

Accordingly, upon winning the diamond queen with the king, the Italian West led the ten of spades to his partner’s ace and got a heart return, and the Taiwanese declarer went down two for a team loss of 530 points.

Tomorrow: The theory of anticipation.