Deal Us In: Special skills can aid in bridge win

Bunny Roland, of Traverse City, Mich., proves that she has the special skills to win at this duplicate bridge game. Many North/South pairs arrived in a five-club contract, and they all took 11 tricks with a spade lead, and they lost a heart and a diamond. Well, all of them except Roland.

When West led the four of spades, Roland played low from the dummy. This allowed East to win with the queen. If East had switched to hearts, Roland could have discarded a diamond on the second-highest spade. East returned a diamond, which was the suit in which dummy had length as well as weakness.

Roland won, drew trump, cashed the king of diamonds and used dummy’s spades to get rid of her last diamond. A diamond ruff set up dummy’s fourth diamond, and a trump to dummy let Roland cash it to toss her heart loser. Making six, a top board helped her to come in first overall in this game.

To download a PDF of this week's Deal Us In page, click here.

Donna Swan is a resident of Longboat Key, an ardent bridge player and an American Contract Bridge League certified director who plays “for the fun of it.”