North-South game; dealer East

North

4J 7 4

!A 6 5 4

#Q J 8

2K 8 3

West East

410 2 4Q 9 6

!8 3 !K J 10 9 7 2

#9 7 3 2 #5 4

2J 10 6 5 4 2A Q

South

4A K 8 5 3

!Q

#A K 10 6

29 7 2

There were two interesting points on this deal from this year's Tel Aviv tournament, reported by Patrick Jourdain. Although at the table himself, he had a purely passive role and it was his partner, Pamela Granovetter, who shone.

East (Pamela) opened 1! and South overcalled with 14. North contented himself with a quiet raise to 24 but jumped to game when his partner made a try in diamonds.

Against 44, Patrick led !8 and declarer won with dummy's ace. The two top trumps failed to drop the queen, but at least the suit broke 3-2. South next turned his attention to diamonds (West carefully petering to show four) and East made the key plays of discarding hearts on the third and fourth rounds instead of ruffing. On the last diamond, declarer happily threw a club from dummy.

Now, however, when South played a club to the king, East was able to win and draw dummy's last trump and now, in the fullness of time, declarer lost two more club tricks to go one off.

It was well defended - note that if East ruffs a diamond at any stage there is still a trump left on the table to look after the third round of clubs - but declarer should have done better. After the opening bid, East was surely marked with 2A. When the third round of diamonds is not ruffed, he should see the dangers ahead and on the fourth diamond discard a heart from the table, not a club. The only real chance was to find 2A coming down in two rounds, so his next move should be to duck a club, watch a third round of trumps being drawn, and ruff the next heart lead. Then, after ducking another round of clubs completely, 2K is his tenth trick.