“You just wait. I’ll sin till I blow up!” – Dylan Thomas

The bridge players who really make themselves popular with journalists are those who voluntarily confess their sins. We cannot absolve the miscreants for their offenses, but we can at any rate thank them for their disinterested acts of kindness.

In this deal from the Tenerife European Open Mixed Teams, Alain Levy of France (who reported this to the Daily Bulletin) did well when he led a heart against five clubs at trick one. Igor Khazanov then followed the natural line of winning in hand and drawing trumps in two rounds, then exiting dummy with a spade to the nine, king and ace. The count in the spade suit was unclear (his partner might have had Q-10-9-2, for example), but Levy had no choice except to return a spade at trick five. With the suit splitting 3-3, declarer could discard his diamond loser on the fourth spade. Had Levy played a diamond back instead of a spade, Khazanov could have changed tack and set up a diamond to discard his spade loser.

As Alain pointed out, since declarer is sure to hold either the spade jack or queen, maybe the winning defense is not impossible to find. If West ducks the spade, declarer is caught in a dilemma. If he continues to play on spades, the defenders have time to cash their winners by shifting to diamonds at once. If declarer switches his attention to diamonds, the defenders go back to spades.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Did you make a negative double? The hand has the right high cards, but your singleton heart is a red flag, and your trump honors in defense against diamonds suggest you should pass. If partner is balanced, defending may bring your best – indeed only – plus score.