Contract Bridge

Born of desperation

The bidding:

East South West North

Pass 4 [S] Pass 7 [S]

Opening lead — king of hearts.

Desperate circumstances require desperate remedies.

For an extreme example, consider this deal from a team-of-four match where at both tables the final contract was seven spades, and West led the king of hearts.

At the first table, declarer won with the ace and, with only 12 top tricks in view, realized that his 13th trick would have to come from diamonds. He therefore ruffed a low diamond at trick two, hoping the diamonds would later prove to be divided 4-3 or, failing that, that either opponent started with the singleton or doubleton queen.

South next led a trump to the ace and ruffed another low diamond. After drawing trump, he crossed to dummy with a club and tried to run the diamonds. Unfortunately, East turned out to have started with five to the queen, so South went down one.

The declarer at the second table, after winning the heart lead, first cashed the A-K of diamonds and then ruffed a diamond high. When West showed out on the third diamond, South realized he could no longer establish the diamonds with normal play since he was short one entry to dummy.

So at trick five, he led a low trump and, after West followed low, finessed dummy’s six! When the finesse succeeded, South was home. He ruffed another diamond high, led a trump to the ace and ruffed the fifth round of diamonds, finally felling East’s queen. After drawing West’s last trump, declarer then played a club to the ace and cashed the jack of diamonds to make the grand slam.

Desperate circumstances require desperate remedies!