Bridge

South's initial problems on today's hand reminded me of the late Rixi Markus describing a similar deal when she observed, somewhat cryptically: "It went No Bid, No Bid, No Bid, and I was trapped!" Well, what would you open with the South hand in fourth seat?

The options were One, Two or Four Hearts. One might allow the opponents into the act (South's singleton spade suggested that they might compete); while Two would exaggerate the quality of the hand. He chose Four, resigning himself to missing a possible slam if North held the right cards.

West led the ace of clubs against Four Hearts, on which his partner played a discouraging three, and switched to the queen of diamonds. A slam was out of the question: the problem lay in finding ten tricks, for West had passed initially and seemed to hold the ace and king of clubs as well as the queen and jack of diamonds. Therefore, the ace of spades was indubitably with East.

Declarer came up with an elegant solution. he allowed the queen of diamonds to win! West, convinced that he was on the right track and that his partner held the ace of diamonds (but not necessarily the ace of spades) continued diamonds and suddenly South was in business. He took his ace, drew trumps with the ace and queen, and discarded his losing spade on the king of diamonds.

It was all over now. The king of spades was led, covered and ruffed, and dummy re-entered with the eight of trumps in order to cash the queen of spades for the tenth trick.