The World Bridge Tour was originally founded during the pandemic by Norwegians Thomas Charlsen and Boye Brogeland to provide online tournaments, but it now operates face-to-face tournaments. This week, we look at some deals from the 2025 event.
As South, you reach four spades on a top club lead, East dropping the queen. West continues with the club ace (East following low) before switching to a diamond. Take it from there.
If the spade king is offside, you are at risk of losing four tricks if you guess the diamonds incorrectly. Is there anything to go on? Well, East dropped the club queen at trick one, showing the jack. West knows this, so he could have underled in clubs for a diamond shift if he had the king. It follows that East must have the diamond king, and your only chance is to play low from dummy.
Indeed, East covers dummy’s diamond eight with the nine. You win with the 10 and can simply lead out your top spades from hand now, losing just one trick to the spade king and making your game.
Most guesses you will face at the bridge table will not be total guesses. There will often be an indication one way or the other, be it based on the line of defense, as here, or your count of the hand.
Amid a world-class field in Denmark, this deal posed no problems. However, the declarer can still succeed even if he gets diamonds wrong, by cashing the spade ace and then running hearts — West would have to ruff the fourth round with the spade king.