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Bridge
By Philip Adler
There are some deals that can be quite deceptive. The normal-looking bid or play is wrong, and the hard part is recognizing that and making the correct choice.
In this deal, for example, who should come out ahead in four clubs after West leads the diamond two?
South opened with a modern weak three clubs, holding only a six-card suit. After West's clear-cut takeout double, North should have bid four clubs immediately if willing to go that high over three diamonds.
South has seven potential losers: two spades, one heart, three diamonds and one club. He will have to establish dummy's heart king and ruff some diamonds in the dummy.
At the table, South won with his diamond ace and led the heart queen. Now West found the only winning defense: He won and shifted to his low trump. He saw the need to try to reduce those ruffs in the shorter trump hand.
South won with dummy's ace (finessing would not have helped), discarded a spade on the heart king, ruffed a heart in his hand, ruffed a diamond on the board, and called for a heart.
Now East undid his partner's good work by ruffing. South overruffed, trumped another diamond, and discarded his last spade on the high heart eight. West had to ruff, but it cost his trump trick. If East had discarded on the fourth heart, he could have ruffed the fifth heart and the defenders would have taken one spade, one heart, one club and either one diamond or a second club.
In general on defense, do not waste a trump by ruffing a loser.