Today’s deal is from the recent Norwegian Pairs Championship. South was Norwegian star Christian Bakke, on route to victory in the event.
The opening spade lead was an obvious singleton, and there was no point to ducking it. Bakke rose with dummy’s ace, led a heart to his ace, and cashed the queen of hearts, drawing trumps. Bakke might have led a spade at this point. East would have had to find a diamond shift immediately to defeat the contract. Bakke found a brilliant solution that gave the defenders no chance.
Bakke knew that West had only minor-suit cards remaining, and West had to have all the high cards in those suits for his opening bid. Bakke cashed the ace of diamonds and exited with the jack of diamonds to the West’s queen. West chose to lead a diamond, making it easy for Bakke. A better defence from West at this point would have been to cash in on the ace of clubs and lead another club. Bakke was ready for this, also. Bakke would have won in hand with the king and crossed to dummy with the king of hearts. He would have cashed the dummy’s queen of clubs and led another club, shedding two spades from his hand. West would now be forced to yield a ruff-sluff and give Bakke his contract. Very nicely played!
