Yesterday, we featured Fred Gitelman. Today, John Diamond, one of his teammates in the 2010 Rosenblum World Championships win, is starring. John was in the winning USA2 squad at the 1991 World Junior Teams and has since captured six NABC titles, mostly partnering with Brian Platnick. Here, he was playing with me. See if you can match John’s skillful dummy play here.
Declaring four spades, your chances seem slim on a low diamond lead, but when dummy’s king holds, things start to look up. You draw trumps in two rounds, ending in hand as West discards a diamond. What now?
You would like the defenders to open clubs for you, rather than playing them yourself. Try to eliminate the red suits instead, by first leading a heart to the jack and king. East cashes a diamond and returns the heart 10. You win with the ace and ruff a heart as West follows with the queen. You can delay the club play no longer. You cross to dummy in trumps and lead the club two, intending to put in the seven to endplay West. Annoyingly, East thwarts you by playing the club nine, so you try the queen, losing to the king. West returns a club. What now?
The Principle of Restricted Choice might argue for playing low, but there is an even better reason to do so. East is a fine player; with three low clubs, he would have shifted to a club to break up the endplay the last time he was on lead.
Diamond accurately played the six from dummy, forcing East’s club jack, to bring home his game.