Bridge

Today’s deal sees a fine move by a defender to create a losing option for declarer, followed by an even more inspired continuation.

When South played in six clubs at matchpoint pairs, West led a low heart to the queen, king, and ace. South next cashed dummy’s club queen. When no 10 or jack appeared, he decided to play off the club king and ace (on which East discarded a small heart to make it clear to his partner that he did not have the heart jack) before running the diamond queen.

Can you guess what happened next? West ducked the first diamond trick, smoothly, then took the diamond jack continuation with his king. But now what? West spotted the weakness in declarer’s armor. Though South now had the rest of the tricks, he had created a potential problem in communications for himself. Having identified the problem, West exploited it to the full when he shifted to the spade king.

This is a Merrimac Coup, sacrificing a potential trick to blockade declarer. South could take the spade ace, but with no entry back to dummy after unblocking his diamond ace, he had to concede one down, losing trick 13 to the spade jack.

Yes, of course declarer could have made life a lot easier for himself by untrustingly refusing the second diamond finesse, or even not taking the finesse at all, but the lure of the overtrick was too much for him. He will know better next time!

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Rebid two no-trump. It is best to limit your hand first (showing a balanced 12-14 points) and only then to support spades and, if possible, to make a slam try or two. Once you’ve limited your values, you will have a chance to let loose.