A Choice of Improbabilities

By Alan Truscott

The Transnational Teams was not going well for the Truscotts, and the final blow, from a match against Hong Kong players, saw Dorothy with this hand as East:

ª A 8 7 5 4 2
© J 8 7 2
¨ -
§ J 6 3

She heard this:

West	North	East	South
A.T.	Steve Wong	D.T.	Chan Yiu
	1§(1)	1ª	2¨
Pass	4§(2)	Pass	4¨
5¨	Pass	6¨	All Pass

(1) Strong, Precision
(2) Splinter

Partner leads the spade king. What do you do? You must decide whether South has bid the slam with three spade losers or with two. Both are wildly improbable, but one of them must be true. Overtaking, and playing partner for a singleton, seems far-fetched. If it is wrong, you have destroyed the defence. But if it is right, you may survive by playing low: South will have still two spade losers to deal with.

Unfortunately the whole hand was:

Dealer North. N/S Vul
	ª Q 9 3 © A K Q 4 ¨ K Q J 7 6 § Q
ª K © 9 6 3 ¨ 8 3 § 10 9 8 7 5 4 2		ª A 8 7 6 5 2 © J 8 7 2 ¨ - § J 6 3
	ª J 10 4 © 10 5 ¨ A 10 9 5 4 2 § A K

Once the spade king held, we were helpless. I shifted to a club, and South briskly ran all his minor-suit winners to squeeze Dorothy in the major suits.

Notice that South was right, up to a point, to bid six diamonds. Unless the spades are blocked he will not make five, so he might as well go for it. Our team mates were in Five Diamonds from the North side, and were somewhat lucky to make that. The lead of the spade ace held them to five.

This contributed substantially to our plunge into the Transnational basement. I am sure that all the teams keeping us company were equally unlucky.

Bridge is a difficult game of chance.