Another highly competitive auction as is so typical in today’s tournament world. Everyone had a dandy time and the fun finally stopped when North-South reached five spades.
Five spades is an excellent contract and would make most of the time. West, however, started thinking when he stopped bidding. West reasoned that, at unfavourable vulnerability, his partner was likely to have a singleton to justify his bid of four clubs. Where was it? Surely not in a black suit. South had bid diamonds in the auction, so West thought East’s most likely shortness would be in diamonds. He backed his judgment by leading the six of diamonds.
South won with dummy’s ace and ran the jack of spades to West’s ace. West could have defeated the contract by two tricks if he led a diamond right away, but he had second thoughts. For partner to have started with a singleton diamond, South would have to have a sixcard diamond suit. This would be most unusual after the opening bid of one spade. West hedged his bets by cashing the ace of clubs before leading a second diamond. This resulted in down one instead of two, but it was still an excellent result. Nice lead!
