Keith Hanson of Boca Raton, Florida, has been one of America’s great bridge teachers for many years. He is also an excellent player. Hanson was East in today’s deal.
This deal is from a high-stakes rubber bridge game that took place some years ago and the bidding used in the game was not very sophisticated by today’s standards. However, it was in line with the way bidding was done in the old days. Many readers should recognize it. Against the four of spades, West cashed his three top hearts to give the defense a good start. West changed to the jack of diamonds, which was won by declarer in the hand with the ace.
South had to play the trump suit without losing and the most likely way to do this was to find one of the defenders with a doubleton queen of spades. He could also easily handle the singleton queen in West’s hand. South started by leading spades to dummy’s ace and Hanson easily dropped the queen! What would you do? Declarer, as we all believed, believed that Hanson had just played the singleton queen and West started with four spades for 10. South crossed his hand with the king of diamonds and led the nine of spades. He played low to dummy and was shocked to see Hanson win with his 10 to beat the contract. Great play!
