Games: Bridge
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Your support makes all the difference.GAME ALL; DEALER SOUTH
] 4 3
_ K J 5 4 3
+ Q J
[ K Q J 9
] Q 6
_ 6
+ A 9 6 3 2
[ 10 8 6 5 2
] A K J 8 7 5 2
_ 10 8
+ 8
[ A 7 3
] 10 9
_ A Q 9 7 2
+ K 10 7 5 4
[ 4
Good card-reading and accurate defence were needed to defeat the spade game on this hand. Against a suit contract, when a defender leads a side suit bid by dummy, it is very often a singleton. Here West led the six of hearts to dummy's jack, East's queen and declarer dropped the 10, trying to give the impression that it was he who had the singleton. But a study, not only of the cards in sight, but also of those missing will lead you to draw the right conclusions. If West had started with a doubleton he would have led the eight, not the six - therefore it must be South who was concealing the missing card.
The bidding had proceeded unopposed: One Spade from South (precision, showing at least five spades and less than 16 points), Two Hearts, Three Spades, Four Clubs, Four Spades.
On lead with the queen of hearts after trick one, East had to puzzle out where the defence could find four tricks. Two heart tricks, hopefully a heart ruff if partner could overruff dummy - and the fourth? What other clues had East from the bidding? Well, there was South's failure to cue- bid Four Diamonds over Four Clubs (in the opponents' system, cue-bids below game level didn't show extra values), and as North had not yet made a limit bid there was a strong assumption that declarer did not have the ace or was void.
East cashed the ace of hearts, on which West signalled helpfully with the nine of diamonds. Now East played his king of diamonds before playing a third heart which South ruffed with the jack of trumps and West overruffed with the queen. If East doesn't cash his diamond king before attempting to give his partner a heart ruff, declarer simply discards his diamond.
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