I am retired both from full-time work and from tournament bridge. My main bridge interest is researching the history of the tournament game in England: the first (and possibly only) instalment, covering the period up to the end of WW2, was published on the EBU website in December 2016.
My first serious bridge partner was Richard Granville and he suggested that I sign up to this site.
Read more »I came across this hand very recently and was wondering how people would rule.
The hand occurred in a late stage of a KO event and you don't have to like the auction: West opened 1♥, East responded 2♣ and South doubled. The next four calls were 2♥-2♠-3♥-4♠-5♥, at which point North put an end to proceedings with a double.
North led ♦7, low from dummy, Ace from South. Two rounds of spades followed: declarer ruffed the second and finessed ♣Q. South returned a diamond which ran to dummy's Jack. Declarer now played a small trump from dummy and, when South played low, thought for a long time, apparently removing the Ace, putting it back and removing it again. North eventually said "It doesn't make any difference". Declarer now played the ace, cashed ♦K, ruffed his last diamond with dummy's small heart, North discarding a spade. The ♥Q was now played: North won with the King, exited with a club and scored his last trump on an over-ruff; three down and 500 to N-S.
Obviously, had declarer cashed dummy's ♣A before playing ♥Q, he would have escaped for two down rather than three down. Declarer's position was that the comment "It doesn't make any difference" was an indication that trumps were originally 2-2 so it didn't matter what he did. Note in passing that North did well to discard a spade rather than his second club when the fourth round of diamonds was played.
How do you rule?
As a subsidiary question, where and when do you think that the hand occurred?
