When I first started to play tournament bridge in the early seventies Chris Dixon was already an established star, playing regularly with the likes of Terence Reese and Robert Sheehan. Today’s deal features him in action.
EW vulnerable, Dealer East
East’s two diamonds was a Multi, showing a weak two bid in either major. West’s two hearts was asking East to pass with hearts or convert to two spades with spades. After East obliged, North’s balancing double was for take-out and South leapt to the thin game.
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The opening lead was the queen of spades which East won with the ace to return a trump. Declarer ducked and West won his queen. West continued with a second spade which declarer won with the king. It looks as if declarer must lose a second trump trick and at least one club but declarer had other ideas.
At trick four he played the jack of diamonds, covered by the queen and king. He now cashed the ace of trumps and ran his diamonds. West refused to ruff any of these but it did him no good. Declarer simply exited with a trump and guessed right when West exited with a club in the ending. Nicely done.
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Last week’s problem
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Plan the play on the queen of hearts lead.
Win the ace of hearts, draw trumps, play a diamond to the king, a diamond to the ace and ruff a diamond. Now exit with a heart. Even if South ducks this (when he wins he can cash a heart but then will be endplayed), you will still succeed because North has the queen of clubs.
The last four problems have come from the set of hands prepared by Paul Bowyer for the annual parliamentary match.