Sunday, December 23, 2001		Bridge

IT is very curious how hands go in pairs. Only the other week I described a slam where the trump suit was SQ 1093 in dummy and SA8764 in declarer’s hand.

(Then the problem had been to avoid the loss of two trump tricks and the declarer had fallen for a deceptive play by a defender). Almost as I finished writing the article, I watched this deal with exactly the same trump suit.

Here however, as the defenders had already taken an Ace, the problem was to avoid losing any trump tricks in order to make the slam.

South dealt at game all and the bidding was not very elegant. South opened One Spade, North Forced with Three Hearts and South rebid his Spades — not everybody’s choice. North launched into Blackwood — on an unsuitable hand — and subsided in Six Spades when he found that an Ace was missing.

West started with the Ace and another Diamond and (to South at any rate) the problem was clear.

There were two possibilities of avoiding a trump loser. He could hope to find East with the singleton King — when the Ace followed by a finesse of the nine would be the winning play — or hope that West held the singleton Jack. Then the Queen from dummy, pinning the Jack, would enable him to pick up East’s trumps.

Mathematically both plays had an equal chance of success but declarer had no hesitation in taking the winning line when at Trick 3 he led dummy’s Queen of Spades.

Later I asked him what had prompted him in the right direction. He agreed that there was nothing to choose between the two plays, given perfect defence, but he made an interesting psychological point.

The bidding had been so vague that even if East had held SK2 (and West SJ5), East might not cover the Queen, fearing that he would solve South’s problem if his Spades were as good as SAJ87654 when attempting to drop the King would be just as attractive as finessing.