Bridge

NORTH-SOUTH used the fact that this was rubber bridge to justify their exuberant bidding. A favourable lead seemed to give declarer good chances, but then he met with a bad break. It was now necessary for him to play extremely well to justify his optimism.

North opened One Heart, South forced with Two Spades, and North raised to Three Spades. Blackwood revealed a dearth of aces and South took a wild stab at Six Spades against which he was fortunate enough to get a trump lead. After winning in hand, declarer cashed the ace of hearts, crossed to dummy with a trump, and ruffed a low heart. Then he went to dummy with another trump and ruffed one more heart. West showed out and this was bad news.

South was quick to spot that he was still in business for East, who guarded the hearts, might well have at least two of the missing club honours. So declarer drew the last trump and followed with three rounds of diamonds. This left him with C1083, dummy with HKJ CQ, and East pushed for a discard from HQ10 CAJ. A heart or the club jack would be fatal and he made a good try by discarding his ace.

No joy, for declarer followed with the queen of clubs (pinning East's jack). If West won, he could only lead a club into South's 108 tenace if he ducked, then the king of hearts would be South's twelfth trick. It was a good example of the so-called "winkle" squeeze.