Bridge

One unusual feature of George Jacobs’ team, the losing finalists in the American trials of 1999, was that it bore the name Team Goldman, after Bobby Goldman, a team-member who had died earlier that year. Bobby was an original member of the Dallas Aces, the first American team to break the long run of successes of the Italians during the late ‘50s and ‘60s

In the semifinal match between Goldman and Cayne, Michael Seamon, for the Cayne team, made a farsighted, and very successful, deceptive play. Against four spades doubled, West started with the club ace, on which Seamon, who knew from the final double that East had a singleton club, dropped his king! West eyed this with suspicion but decided to believe declarer and shifted to a low diamond. Had he found the heart shift instead, East would still have had a chance of finding the underlead of the diamond ace to West’s king to obtain a club ruff.

East did his best when he won his diamond ace, cashed the heart ace and continued with a second diamond. However, Seamon ruffed, cashed the heart king, then ruffed a heart. When he next guessed to ruff another diamond in hand and drop West’s king, he was able to trump a second heart to dummy, dropping the queen, play out one top spade from dummy, then lead winning diamonds. He now had a home for his club loser and could make the rest on a crossruff, for an exceptionally pleasurable score of 790.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Pass, reluctantly, but what else can you do? Your hand is simply not worth a call of two no-trump. Your lack of stuffing in all your suits means that you have no source of tricks. Settle for trying to go plus in two clubs.