Bridge
Omar Sharif is associated with the swashbuckling coup. But as he demonstrates in his latest book, “Omar Sharif Talks Bridge,” there is a role for the humble safety play too.
In a pairs game, declaring four spades on a diamond lead, you would doubtless try your luck with a finesse. At teams, Omar took a different approach. He called for dummy’s diamond six, and East did well when he won the trick with the diamond 10. East switched to a heart and Omar won with the ace. When he played the ace and king of trumps, West showed out, but declarer simply crossed to the diamond ace and took the marked finesse in trumps, proceeding to draw East’s last trump with his queen. When the clubs came in for only one loser, Omar had made the contract.
The point of the deal is to consider how the play would have gone if it had been West who had turned up with four trumps to the jack and South had therefore needed to dispose of his heart loser. Declarer could still have finessed the diamond queen at this point, in an attempt to obtain his heart discard.
At the other table of the match, the contract and opening lead were the same. Declarer tried his luck with the diamond queen at trick one. Omar’s teammate as East won with the king and returned a diamond, driving out the last entry to dummy. That left South unable to cope with the 4-1 trump break; down one.
Bid with the aces
South holds:
| “A K Q 10 8 | |
| “A 10 | |
| “9 4 | |
| “A K 6 4 |
| South | West | North | East |
| 1 “ | Pass | 1NT | Pass |
| 3 “ | Pass | 3 “ | Pass |
| ? |
Answer: Rebid three no-trump and do not emphasize your black suits again, despite all your beautiful high cards there. You have already shown a 5-4 pattern and a game-forcing hand. When partner suggests diamonds (probably without a fit for you), you should be happy to let him play three no-trump.