Blind spots in bridge arise out of human vulnerability and occur even amongst the top experts of the game. Bridge is a battle of wits between the declarer and the opponents. Both the sides know what is expected of them with their goals clearly defined.
Declarer tries his level best to achieve the optimum of tricks and make the final contract. The defence tries to defeat his plans. With the advantage of the opening head lying with the opponents, they usually do the opposite of what the declarer does on the general assumption that what is good for the goose is bad for the gander.
While mental alertness is shown both by the declarer and the two opponents, sometimes in the heat of the battle, a slip is made - an error of judgement arising out of a blind spot that would not let the declarer or the opponents in defence see the right way to achieve their goals.
Today's hand is an example of such a battle of wits between the declarer and the opponents in a high stake rubber game by very well known, top bridge players of the world, where North and South were Meckstroth and Forrester, and East West were Chemla and the Hollywood star Omar Sharif.
THE FULL HAND IS PICTURED BELOW WITH THE BIDDING:
The opening lead by Chemla was the JC. As South, how do you go about to collect the 10 tricks needed for your 4S contract? You have a sure loser in hearts, diamonds and clubs.
Even if you are able to catch the JS right, you need timing in cross-ruffs to be certain of your 10 tricks. Let's see how the fascinating battle unfolded at the table. Chemla's JC was won by Forrester with his AC. He wanted the ace of diamonds removed so that his KD could take care of his club loser in dummy.
So he went into the dummy with KS and led the singleton diamond. But East was the big star Omar Sharif who saw no point in taking his ace of diamonds, putting the declarer to a tough guess.
But Forrester had no choice. He got KD right and then realised the better play would have been a low heart from Dummy to set the stage for a cross-ruff. In any case, he now led his low heart to west's 10 of hearts which he ducked. Had East been a lower stature player, declarer would have succeeded in his cross-ruff plan.
But the great expert that Sharif is, he could foresee the cross-ruff coming and that is the mark of a big player. His mental vision never ceases to behold what is coming. He overtook 10H with his queen to lead trumps to break the cross-ruff. In with the 10 of trumps in dummy, the following position emerged after 5 tricks were played.
The declarer still planned to get his 2 side tricks of KC and AH, with 4 trumps. With that in mind he led his low club from dummy and it was here that East made an error of judgement. He thought ruffing his partner's sure trick in Clubs was not appropriate and in that blind spot allowed Forrester to make the contract who took KC, ruffed a diamond, played AH, ruffed a heart, another diamond ruff gave him 9 tricks with Ace of trumps left to make 4S. Had Sharif ruffed clubs and led trumps, declarer would surely have gone down. It only affirms that to err is human.
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North West East South
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K Q 1 0 6 7 J 8 5 2 A Q 4 3
A 6 5 4 2 K 1 0 Q 9 7 3 J 8
3 Q 8 7 4 2 A 1 0 9 5 K J 6
5 4 2 J 1 0 9 6 3 Q A K 8 7
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THE BIDDING:
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West North East South
(Chemla) (Manchester) (Sharif) (Forrester)
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- P P 1 N T
P 2 C P 2 S
P 4 S ALL PASS -
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