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It is said that every weapon devised by the will of man sooner or later leads to an effective counter-weapon that acts as an equalizer. I don’t know whether this is literally true or not, but I do know that in bridge, many situations arise where an equivalent principle applies.
This deal occurred in a team-of-four match. At the first table, West led a heart against South’s three-notrump contract. East took dummy’s queen with the king and returned a heart to the ace. Declarer now played a low club to the ten, losing to West’s jack, and West returned a heart to South’s jack.
Declarer then led the king of clubs and overtook it with dummy’s ace. When East’s queen fell, South was able to run dummy’s clubs and make four notrump.
The same contract was defeated at the second table after a heart lead by West, losing to the king, and a heart return by East to dummy’s ace. Again, declarer led a low club to the ten, but here West allowed South’s ten to win the trick! As a result, declarer could not run dummy’s clubs and finished down two.
Both declarers were very much on their toes in playing the clubs as they did. They realized that their best chance for the contract was to find East with the Q-x or J-x of clubs, in which case they would score five club tricks after losing the ten to West’s jack or queen.
The second declarer ran into unusually inspired defense as West found the countermeasure to defuse South’s plan. West sacrificed a club trick by refusing to take his jack, but his side got three tricks back in exchange.
Tomorrow: Sylvia.
King Features Syndicate Inc.