Bridge
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.South claimed hard luck after going down in his game contract on this deal but I cannot help feeling that he missed a better percentage play.
South opened One Spade, North raised to Two Spades, and, without any preliminaries, South jumped to game. West led the king of clubs against Four Spades and declarer ruffed the club continuation. As it would have been all over if the queen of trumps had fallen in two rounds (a 50 per cent possibility of a 2-2 break with the extra chance of the queen being singleton), South continued with his two top trumps only to find that West still held the queen.
The diamonds had to be tried, so declarer crossed to the ace of hearts and finessed the jack of diamonds (East might have held both of the missing honours). No joy, for West won with his queen and drew a third round of trumps. Then he forced again with a third round of clubs, using up South's last trump. With no entry left to the table for another diamond finesse, de-clarer unavailingly played off his ace of diamonds but the king did not fall and so he had to lose a fourth trick and so go off.
So, what was the alternative? When the first top trump failed to drop a singleton queen, it would not have been a bad idea to lead a low trump from hand. This may cost a trick unnecessarily but it would ensure a trump entry to the table and so enable South to take two diamond finesses instead of just one. This would seem to offer at least a 75 per cent chance of success - a better bet, I think, than South's actual line.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments