Contract Bridge

When a player not on lead doubles a slam voluntarily reached by the opponents, the double nearly always is conventional. In effect, it asks partner to make an unusual lead that the doubler believes is likely to set the slam.

There is ample justification for this convention. Ordinarily, when a pair undertakes a slam, they either make it or go down one, and there is little to be gained by doubling.

But if a double by the player not on lead is reserved for cases where only an unusual lead will stop the slam, the gain is huge when the double is successful. In the present case, if East’s double induces a spade lead that East ruffs, and this is followed by a diamond return and another ruff, East-West wind up plus 500 instead of being on the wrong side of a vulnerable slam.

Here, East’s double clearly requests a spade lead. A diamond or club lead would be normal on the bidding, so the double bars either of these leads.

West did lead a spade — the three — which East ruffed, but East, faced with a difficult choice of returns, shifted to a club. As a result, South made the slam.

Oddly enough, the principal culprit in the misdefense was actually West, not East. West should reason that East might not know what to return after trumping the first trick. He should therefore lead the nine of spades rather than the three as a suit-preference signal to East, asking for the higher-ranking of the two remaining side suits to be returned. With this cue to guide him, East would have a much easier time finding the winning defense.

Of course, West can solve the problem even more easily in the actual deal by cashing the diamond ace before leading a spade, but while this stratagem would defeat the slam, it would cost the defenders an extra 300 points.