Chattanooga Times Free Press

Bridge

BY PHILLIP ALDER

Let’s take a second look at the excellent book by Englishmen Terence Reese and David Bird, “All You Need to Know About Play,” available at Amazon. Along with many full deals, there are several single-suit combinations to demonstrate what is possible in this fascinating game.

Today’s deal is in one of the defense sections. Take the East seat. Against six spades, your partner leads the club 10. Declarer wins in hand with the queen, cashes his spade ace and plays a spade to dummy’s king, partner following both times. Now comes dummy’s singleton heart. How do you defend?

After North’s transfer bid, South jumped to three spades to show a maximum with four-card support — a superaccept.

You are faced with a perennial problem. When a side-suit singleton is led from the dummy, should you win with the ace or duck? Usually it is right to play low smoothly.

Of course, if the ace is the setting trick, take it. More often, though, what might be lost on the roundabout normally comes back with interest on the swings. Maybe the declarer has a king-jack combination he must guess correctly, or perhaps the deal is like this one. If you win with the heart ace, declarer has two discards for dummy’s diamond losers, whereas if you duck, sacrificing one heart trick, your side receives two diamond tricks in return.

PUZZLES & FUNNIES

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2023-03-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.timesfreepress.com/article/281921662306558

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