Contract Bridge

This deal occurred many years ago in a match between Holland and Belgium. The final contract at both tables was four hearts.

At the first table, the Dutch West led the king and another spade. East won with the ace and hopefully continued with the jack, but South easily made the contract after ruffing in dummy and driving out the ace of trumps.

At the second table, the Belgian West made the more normal lead of the four of spades rather than the king. Declarer (Martin Cats) played low from dummy, and East (Roger Silberwasser) won with the jack.

Recognizing that West had the king of spades as an entry card, Silberwasser shifted to his singleton diamond at trick two, planning to negotiate a diamond ruff later on.

It was obvious to Cats that the diamond return was a singleton. So, in an effort to forestall the impending ruff, Cats won the diamond in dummy, cashed the A-K of clubs, discarding a spade from his hand, and led a third round of clubs.

He hoped East would follow high, in which case Cats planned to discard his last spade. This would prevent West from ever gaining the lead with a spade for the killing diamond return.

It was a laudable effort, and it would have succeeded had East been asleep at the switch. But Silberwasser refused to be caught napping.

On the ace of clubs he had played the six, and on the king he had played the jack. (Had he played the seven, South would have made the contract.)

On the third club

Silberwasser played the seven, and now there was no way to stop East from getting a diamond ruff. Silberwasser was the victor in the Cats-and mouse game.

Tomorrow: A bird in the hand.