Sunday, July 7, 2002		Bridge

It was a disaster for East to play low
by Omar Sharif

SOUTH made his contract on this week’s deal although he should not have done so.

I had to be tactful about it for it was East, an unsuccessful defender, who asked me: "Did I really do a bad thing? Or Did declarer just play it well?" Between you and me, the answer to both questions was Yes.

East dealt at love all and opened One Heart, South over-called with Two Spades, West passed and North raised to game. West led the Jack of Hearts against Four Spades and declarer ruffed the Heart continuation.

It looked an irritating hand — there was the problem of avoiding three Diamond losers.

There were several possibilities — East might hold only two Diamonds headed by an honour, East might hold both the Ace and King of Diamonds and, finally, East might get the defence wrong.

South drew trumps in two rounds, ending in dummy, and followed with the Jack of Diamonds. It looked to East as though declarer was planning a finesse, so he played low. Disaster.

West won with the King, but a later lead towards the Queen established the tenth trick. As you can see, looking at all four hands, if East had won the Jack with his Ace, the defenders would have had two more tricks to come in the suit.

East should have argued that as club finesse (if declarer needed it) was right, then the only chance of defeating the contract lay in taking three Diamond tricks.

You can construct a variety of hands for South, but it looks very much as though covering the Jack of Diamonds with the Ace can never give away the contract and may defeat it.