BRIDGE PUZZLE

North-south vulnerable, North deals

Opening lead: Ace of

♦

Some years ago, a British bridge administrator and a member of Parliament, both coincidentally with the last name of Harris, decided to enter a bridge tournament as partners. They never threatened the top of the leaderboard, but they did achieve one result that was worth bragging about to their friends.

We have no problem with North’s skinny opening bid, but his subsequent jump to slam looks a tad aggressive to us. In his favor, he assumed that partner held no wasted diamond values and that whatever values he did have were pulling full weight. The ambitious contract had play! The winning club finesse was there for North-south but it looked like the contract would fail due to the foul split in trumps.

West cashed his ace of diamonds at trick one and shifted to the 10 of hearts. South won with dummy’s ace and realized that the best way to play the trump suit was to play a spade to his ace. It cost nothing, however, to lead the jack of spades from the dummy. East panicked and covered with the queen, losing to South’s ace. South crossed his fingers and led a club to the queen. When that held, he finessed East out of his 10 of trumps and claimed the balance. Surprisingly, no other pair bid and made six spades on this deal, and the Harrisses’ scored 128 points out of 128. Well done!

East should have known that declarer would never take a first-round finesse for both the queen and 10. He should have played low. Don’t let this happen to you.