Contract Bridge Brilliant Play By World Champion

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31360, 4 May 1967, Page 9

Contract Bridge Brilliant Play By World Champion

(■Contributed bw J.R.W.) Of the millions of bridge hands played throughout the world to date, only a very small percentage rank as genuine classics. When the following deal arose in a world championship match between the United States and Great Britain some years ago one of the declarers produced a piece of dummy play that sent the assembled watching experts into enthusiastic raptures:

Six clubs is clearly an excellent contract, and the American South duly landed there. He won West’s opening lead of the king of diamonds with dummy’s ace, discarding a spade from hand, and took the finesse in trumps by leading the four of clubs to his own knave. When this won he played out the ace and king, drawing the remaining adverse trumps. The lead of the ace of hearts disclosed the bad break in that suit, so he led a small spade to dummy’s knave. East’s king won, but that was the only trick for the defence. The declarer made his slam contract in comfort with one trick in diamonds, seven in clubs, two in hearts and two in spades. It would have been a different story, however, if West had had the queen of clubs, for the way the hand was played it would have won a trick. Since the hearts could not be established to yield sufficient discards, South would have had to play the spades to lose no tricks. Unless he had second sight he would almost inevitably take a finesse, allowing the singleton king to win and so conceding defeat In the other room, the British South was Terence Reese, in the opinion of many the best player in the world at that time. This was the auction at his table.

6C All pass After South had opened one club, West threw a spanner into the works with a pre-

emptive overcall of three diamonds. Undeterred, North called his hearts and East showed support for his partner. South’s next bid was five diamonds, showing a very strong hand with slam ambitions and almost certainly a void in the opponents’ suit. North could only repeat his hearts so South settled for six clubs, with which everyone was satisfied. As before, the opening lead was the king of diamonds, but Reese played low from dummy, and ruffed in his own hand to play off the ace and king of trumps, leaving East still with the queen. He then made the ace of hearts, crossed to the king in dummy and led the jack. East had to cover with the queen, ruffed by the declarer who led a club to put East on lead in this situation:

Since East dared not lead a heart or a spade, he had to give the declarer an entry to dummy by leading a diamond, on which South was able to discard one of his small spades. The eight of hearts was led from the table, covered by the nine and trumped. Reese re-entered dummy with the ace of spades and the seven and four of hearts were now established, on which he discarded his last two spades. In contrast to his American counterpart who took two finesses, Reese made the slam by taking no finesses, for the only trick he lost was to the queen of clubs. The interesting point is that if East has the queen of clubs, both lines of play, as we have seen, succeed. But Reese also had the extra chance of finding West with the club queen either singleton or doubleton, and he would still have made the slam, whereas his counterpart would probabaly have gone down. It is : the search for additional chances like that which marks out the real champion.

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