ETCETERA: BRIDGE

THERE was an interesting end position on this deal. Declarer, having made a good start, failed to take advantage of a mis-defence by East. Drooling over the best hand he had held all evening, North was irritated to hear East open with a weak Two Spades, which was followed by two passes. He started with a double and was not surprised to hear South respond Two No-trumps (Lebensohl, suggestinga weak hand and requesting North to bid Three Clubs). Fearing this would end matters, North tried Three No-trumps instead and all passed.

Slightly confused, East led the jack of hearts out of turn and South exercised his option of accepting the lead. Unless the ace of clubs was singleton, it looked as though there were only seven tricks, for the spade finesse was sure to be wrong. After winning the lead, dummy advanced the queen of clubs, but, as feared, this was allowed to win.

The only chance lay in finding East with the ace of clubs and that he could be end-played, so declarer cashed his remaining red- suit winners and got off lead with a club. All went as hoped, for East, on winning, was reduced to leading spades. The right card would have been the jack, conceding one trick but defeating the contract. Mistakenly, however, he got off lead with the king, but when dummy won there were still only eight tricks.

Try playing dummy's queen of spades under the king! Now, whatever East leads next, South's ten of spades becomes an entry to the long clubs.