An unusual play

After many moons, to my surprise I received above interesting deal from our friend Deepak Parekh, HDFC. He was one of the bridge players who would play with my late husband, Murli on Saturdays.

‘Those were the days my friend, I thought they would never end.’  

In the above hand, declarer made a    somewhat unusual play that enabled him to make five clubs. West led ♠3, on which declarer, holding a singleton ♠J opposite the ♠A, played low from dummy, losing to East’s ♠Q.       

Of course, South could have avoided the loss of a spade trick by playing the ♠A. He merely swapped a nonexistent spade loser for a certain diamond loser. As a result of this play, South was able to make the contract. When East returned the spade at trick two, declarer discarded a diamond and ruffed two diamonds establishing dummy's fifth diamond. One heart loser was later discarded on the ♦9 and South finished with eleven tricks.

Man appears for a little while to laugh and weep, to work and play, and then to go to make room for those who shall follow him in the never-ending cycle.         

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