Sunday, June 2, 2002		Bridge

All that declarer lost was a Diamond
Omar Sharif

"HOW DO you play a suit of A J72 facing K 543?" demanded a friend the other day. It would have been nice if he had said "Hello" first, but some bridge players are like that. Wisely I asked for the full hand before venturing an opinion but had to be satisfied (for the moment) with just the North-South cards.

I was told that South had ended in Six Clubs and that West (my interrogator) had led the Jack of Hearts.

After winning with the Ace, South had crossed to the King of trumps, studied the fall of the nine closely and, when East followed with the eight on the next trump lead, went up with the Ace to drop West’s Queen.

Now the play was easy and all that declarer lost at the end was a Diamond.

West felt aggrieved about declarer’s play of the trump suit. Surely it would have been correct, he argued, that as a Diamond loser seemed inescapable, South should have taken the percentage play of finessing the Jack of Clubs on the second round.

I was forced to say that I thought declarer’s play quite intelligent. If the trumps break 4-1 there is little hope, and playing for the drop of Queen certainly worked well in practice.

Suppose, though, that West had followed with the ten? Then declarer can play off all his major suit winners before conceding a trump trick.

Whoever wins will have the choice of conceding a ruff and discard, or leading a Diamond and giving declarer a free guess in the suit.