The Aces on Bridge: Friday, August 27, 2010

Dealer: South Vul: None	North ♠ K 10 8 7 ♥ 10 ♦ J 6 ♣ K Q J 9 8 5
West ♠ J 9 ♥ K Q 8 7 6 ♦ 9 8 7 2 ♣ 10 3		East ♠ 5 2 ♥ A 4 ♦ A K 5 3 ♣ A 7 6 4 2
	South ♠ A Q 6 4 3 ♥ J 9 5 3 2 ♦ Q 10 4 ♣ —

 

South	West	North	East
1♠	Pass	2 NT*	Pass
3♥	Pass	4♠	All Pass

*Invitational or better in spades

Opening Lead: ♦ 8

“The deed is everything, the glory nothing.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Over several years of competing in youth tournaments, Thomas Bessis has been a rich source of top-quality declarer play and defense. In the junior European Championships, Thomas produced his finest effort against England in the final match.

It looks as though Chris Owens’ contract of four spades is destined to make, courtesy of the ruffing club finesse, but…

Bessis’ partner, Frederic Volcker, led the diamond eight, second from three or more small cards, and Bessis won the king and cashed the ace. Atthey false-carded with the queen as Volcker dropped the two, confirming two or four cards — clearly four on the auction. Bessis now deviously switched to the club seven, and not surprisingly, declarer was taken in. Atthey ruffed low and gave up a heart, Bessis winning the ace and returning a diamond to declarer’s 10. Atthey ruffed a heart, ruffed a club, and ruffed a heart, being relieved to see that Bessis could not overruff. He now ruffed another club, but Volcker could overruff and that was two down.

How did Bessis find the brilliant underlead? He deduced that his partner would surely have led a singleton club rather than one of four small diamonds, so was marked with either two clubs or a void. Once declarer was known to have three diamonds, plus heart length because of the auction, it had to be he and not Volcker who had the club void.

Because the French North-South pair had played in four clubs down one in the other room, Bessis’ fine defense turned a big loss into a small gain.

For details of Bobby Wolff’s autobiography, The Lone Wolff, contact theLoneWolff@bridgeblogging.com. If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, please leave a comment at this blog. Reproduced with permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc., Copyright 2010. If you are interested in reprinting The Aces on Bridge column, contact reprints@unitedmedia.com.