Source: 51st EUROPEAN BRIDGE TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS Dublin, Ireland
Looking at the number of trumps in declarer’s hand, you might not imagine that it was possible for East to make 4
doubled by way of an endplay to avoid a trump loser, but that is what Spain’s Miguel Goncalves achieved on this deal from Round 1 of the Open series. It helped his team to a 20-10 VP win over Ukraine.
Oleg Rovyshyn led a diamond, which Goncalves ruffed. He played the queen of spades. Rovyshyn won the ace of spades and switched to his trump. It may seem easy to play low from dummy but North will not put up the queen and now you will eventually lose a trump trick as you cannot shorten yourself sufficiently often for an endplay. Goncalves, however, called for dummy’s ace, ruffed a diamond, then played king of spades and ruffed a spade followed by a third diamond ruff. Now came the decision point. Goncalves needed to endplay his opponents twice. If North held the spade nine a spade exit would leave him endplayed to either give a ruff or lead from the king of clubs, and he could later be endplayed again with a club. But if South had the spade nine then a spade exit would only result in one endplay as south could exit with a club. Goncalves judged that North might have bid 4
rather than passed the double with a tenuous trump holding if he held four spades, so judged correctly to play ace and another club. North won and gave a ruff and now a spade exit put South on play to lead into the king-jack of hearts at trick twelve. That meant ten tricks for +590 and 12 IMPs to Spain — Gonzalo Goded played in 3{ for +130 in the other room.
