The Bridge Column

East’s brave three-spade bid led to the opponents being pushed to the five level. It was too dangerous, at this vulnerability, for East-West to compete further. Besides, this would be a great result for East-West if they could defeat five hearts.

East won the opening spade lead with the ace and shifted to the seven of clubs. South won this with the jack and, faced with three almost certain losers, made the most of his chances. South cashed his king of spades, discarding a club from dummy. He then cashed two high clubs and ruffed a club with dummy’s queen of hearts. South had now eliminated both black suits from his hand and the dummy.

South next led a trump to his king and West’s ace. South’s careful play was rewarded when West proved to have only the one heart. West was forced to lead a low diamond to avoid yielding a ruffsluff. All that was left was for South to guess the diamonds correctly. South reasoned that East needed a high card outside of the spade suit to justify his threelevel overcall, and that could only be the king of diamonds. South inserted dummy’s 10 of diamonds. When that forced the king from East, South won with his ace, drew the outstanding trump, and claimed his contract. Well played!

Note that East could have defeated the contract by shifting to a trump at trick two rather than a club. The importance of that shift was not easy to see, so give South credit for his fine play.