AUCTION BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 164, 13 July 1928, Page 6

AUCTION BRIDGE.

FORFEITED YET WON

(By A. E. MANNING FOSTER.)

It is not often that' the gods are kind at Bridge. "The cards never forgive,"' they say. One slip and the rubber that was in your grasp eludes you. But there are exceptions to this rule, and the following example from play shows how even bad bidding may be rescued by bad play on the part of the opponents.

Score game all. Y dealt and bid ''One No Trump"; B "No bid"; Z, "Two Diamonds"'; all pass. This was the most wic&ed bid imaginable on the part of Z. With six certain trieks in his hand he chose to take-out a no trumper into a minor suit. No doubt the honour score influenced him. But of course it should not have done so. He should have called "Two No Trumps" at once on his powerful hand. Having made his atrocious call Y could only imagine that Z held a long Diamond suit and was useless in 110 trumps, so he could not continue the bidding. Z deserved to be punished and would have been punished by missing the game and rubber but for the bad play of the opponents. The opening lead by A was the 7 of Clubs, which dummy won. / took one Diamond trick and led a small Spade, A's King winning. Another Club lead cleared the suit, and Z followed this with his four remaining Diamonds. It was on the last of these Diamonds that B had to make his critical discard. His cards and dummy's were:—

Dummy discarded the 7 of Hearts, and B chose the G of Spades—his correct discard being the Jack of Clubs, although it was the last card of his partner's suit. The important thing was to make two more tricks, which, added to A's King of Spades, would save the game. The King of Hearts looked like one of those tricks and B's best chance of tl.e further trick was with the Jack of Spades, which lie should have kept adequately guarded. But "adequately guarded" meant two guards, as the Ace and Queen had yet to be played. If B had thrown the Jack of C'iubs, the Jack of Spades would have been a winner. Suppose Z finessed the Hearts, B would win with the King and return a Heart, forcing dummy to lead Spades and give away a trick. Or if Z'playe-1 the Ace ©f Hearts, without finessing, he would almost certainly lead the Queen of Spades (as was done in actual play), and again B must make the Jack of Spades. But as B had left only one guard to at Jack it fell on dummy's Queen and the 10 of spades gave Z the game.