Bridge

Signaling on defense is a tricky business and in many ways is far more challenging than declarer play. As declarer, one wants to deceive the opponents – and it does not matter if dummy gets confused. By contrast, as a defender one always has to think about how much information one wants to let declarer have, assuming that he might be paying attention to the signals one gives partner.

Today’s six-no-trump slam occurred at rubber bridge. The diamond 10 was led to South’s queen, East contributing a knee-jerk six to begin an echo that was likely to be relevant only to declarer. Next came a spade to dummy’s jack, followed by a diamond toward the jack, which held the trick as West contributed the nine, a significant card.

Now, because of East’s play of the diamond six and five, South decided to treat the diamond nine as a true card – from a doubleton holding rather than from three. So he cashed the heart ace and played a club to dummy’s ace and a heart back to the nine. West could win his queen but had no diamond left to lead. Accordingly, declarer could take the club finesse for his contract, and when it held, he was home, discarding his heart and diamond losers on dummy’s black-suit winners.

It would not have helped East to rise with the diamond ace earlier, for then South would have had three diamond tricks, three spade tricks, two hearts, and four club winners, bringing his total to 12.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Bid two spades as the fourth suit, forcing to game and asking partner to describe his hand. A jump to three no-trump might lead to your missing a better red-suit game, or even slam. Meanwhile you can always bid no-trump at your next turn, suggesting some doubt as to the final strain.