Morton's Fork.
		       By Jos van Kan.

Many plays in bridge depend on position. The humble finesse is the most obvious
example and positional squeezes another, be it a lot more complicated. The play
we are about to describe falls a bit in between, but is very elegant.

You (S) have as dealer at imps, neither side vulnerable

       S 3
       H AKJ932
       D K742
       C Q3

You open an impeccable Heart, W doubles and partner bids 2NT promising a limit
raise in H or better. E passes and you can hardly bid less than 4H after which
everyone passes.

Against this contract W leads ST and partner tables
       
       S KJ5
       H QT84
       D J5
       C KJ74

1. What do you play to this trick and why?





















1. SJ. There was no reason to assume for W that dummy would be strong in
   Spades, so he won't have underled his Ace. 
   SJ forces a very welcome A from E, who thinks for a while and returns a S.

2. Who has the minor suit Aces?

3. How do you plan the play?




















3. West, without a shadow of a doubt is marked with both minor suit aces and
   may well be in the possesion of all outstanding high card points. If that is
   true, we just have escaped immediate defeat.

4. The bad news, of course is, that routine play like playing small to KD is
   not going to work, because we'll lose two D tricks in addition to the black
   Aces.

5. So?





















5. But you have a threat against W that most players will overlook, because
   they tend to discard on the second trick. It is absolutely vital, however,
   to ruff trick 2 and preserve SK for a discard later on. The point is, that
   at this point you do not know yet what to discard.

   Two trump tricks later you are in your hand again, W having discarded a S on
   the second trump trick. 

6. What next?





















6. The next thing you do is play a small C towards dummy. If W takes his A, he
   gives you *three* C tricks, which together with your 6 H and 1 S trick add
   up to 10. If on the other hand W ducks CA, you simply discard CQ on SK and
   the defensive C trick evaporates.

The whole deal was:

                 S KJ5
                 H QT84
                 D J5
                 C KJ74
       S QT96            S A8742
       H 6               H 75
       D A983            D QT6
       C AT85            C 962
                 S 3
                 H AKJ932
                 D K742
                 C Q3

As it was, the hand was unbeatable, since E cannot profitably switch D in trick
2. The play of the small Club to dummy, threatening to discard the Q is called
"Morton's Fork Coup". W is really caught on the horns of a dilemma and has no
defense.

Copyright (c) 1997 by Jos van Kan. All rights reserved.